


Between Darkness and Light

by Exaggerated_Specificity



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Animal Death, Crimes & Criminals, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Domestic Winchesters, Drug Addiction, Homophobic Language, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, Major Character Undeath, Murder, Overdosing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape, Revenge, Rimming, Sam Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sam Kills Everyone, Sexual Violence, Sibling Incest, Supernatural and J2 Big Bang Challenge, The Crow AU, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 01:24:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 32,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4459892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exaggerated_Specificity/pseuds/Exaggerated_Specificity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <br/>
    <img/>
    <br/>
  </p>
</div>Sam and Dean finally found happiness, a tiny scrap of peace in the otherwise violent cacophony of their lives. They moved back to their hometown of Lawrence, Kansas, letting domestic life fold in easily around them as they built a life together away from the darkness of their past. For a while it was good, better than maybe either of them deserved. Sam finally let himself believe they had escaped the bloody, violent death he always feared was in store for them. Sadly, suddenly, the greed, violence and jealousy of mortal men swooped in and took it all away.Twisted by grief and consumed by revenge, Sam paints his face with a Glasgow smile of white and black and tracks down the men who split his soul in two, making them pay for what they did.<p>Inspired by The Crow graphic novel by James O’Barr. This is a horror story. Read the warnings and please heed them. There is beauty, love, and light woven in but you will need to wade through darkness to reach it.</p>
<p>
  <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/gojyochan/playlist/4SFnnVU728Hq8H6YUwTHvD">Soundtrack on Spotify</a>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Serva me, servabo te ~ Save me and I will save you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dollylux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/gifts), [homo_pink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/homo_pink/gifts).



 

1.

_**Serva me, servabo te** _

 

  
_Save me and I will save you_

  
A tall figure in black lurked at the end of the trash-strewn alleyway but Marcus didn’t notice. He was too intent on his task. He had been casing the store for a week and he knew his window was narrow. The rusty dock door still hung lazily half-open as the delivery truck rumbled off down the alley in the opposite direction, its blinker reflecting at strange angles off the wet brick and murky puddles peppering the blacktop. It had rained most of the day, thunder still rumbled low in the distance, and the smell of ozone in the air was masked by the foul odor of garbage and molding cardboard. Marcus crept around the dumpster, hopped up on the crumbling concrete receiving platform, and slipped under the roll-up door. He wrapped his thick, ebony arms around the first large box of leather jackets he spotted and backed out the way he came, as slowly and quietly as he could, trying not to draw the attention of the poor schmuck who just signed for the delivery. With any luck he could lug the package out of earshot and get the stack of coats back to his car before anyone realized a box was missing from inventory.  
  
The box was bulky, awkward, and heavy but Marcus could manage. The long hours he put in at the gym were good for more than just his physique. Sure, it kept him in shape for his part-time gig as a bouncer at The Gallery and it was great for burning off the cocktail of uppers he regularly pumped into his system. As an added bonus, Dante seemed to appreciate the extra effort too. The boss had been giving Marcus more jobs on his own lately and the cash was nice. It was certainly more than his scrawny, junky cronies were getting as table scraps and Marcus didn’t mind. A little muscle here, a little petty theft there, it was nothing he wouldn’t be doing on his own. The more Dante trusted you, the better. If Marcus was lucky, Dante could fence the jackets he lifted for at least a hundred a piece and Marcus would get half the take for his trouble if he played his cards right. Marcus was showing initiative with this little endeavor and he hoped the payoff would be worth more than a few extra bucks.  
  
He stopped for breath at the end of the alley, tucking the box discreetly next to a dented, tagged up dumpster and waited for an opening in the traffic out on Bristol. The fewer potential witnesses, the better. This was a part of town where Marcus would stick out in the mind of passersby with his onyx skin and menacing physique. The bundle of twisted braids pulled into a wrist-thick ponytail down his back didn’t help and neither did the long, leather trench coat that inspired his little visit to the back entrance of Wilson’s Leather. He’d get pegged in a lineup if he was sloppy; a few extra precautions made sense.  
  
The street was clear, easy enough since all the shops in the affluent suburb were shuttered up by nine o’clock anyway. Marcus dipped back into the shadows, pulling a small, silver box cutter from his pants pocket. He sliced down the front of the box gently, mindful of the merchandise beneath the layers of cardboard and tape. The scent of leather rushed up, making Marcus hum. Ah, the smell of money.  
  
“Six-hundred bucks, easy as pie,” he mumbled happily as he folded back the packaging to inspect coats beneath.  
  
“Those don’t look like your size, Marcus.”  
  
Marcus spun around, brandishing the tiny blade in defense. “Hey, fuck you, man. Mind your own fuckin’ business, alright?” Marcus barked, slashing at the air separating him and the tall, broad man standing like a sentry at the mouth of the alley. The man stood firm and quiet, his arms crossed, the front of his body shadowed as light from the street behind him carved his silhouette into Marcus’ vision.  
  
He was six-four, six-five, easy with shoulders as wide as Marcus’ own but a narrow waist and lean legs like one of The Gallery’s dancers. Beads of moisture glistened on his bare biceps and dark hair hung in damp, loose waves around his face which was painted white and black like some character from a comic book.  
  
“The fuck you all painted up for, man? It’s a long fuckin’ time ‘til Halloween.” Marcus’ laugh sounded more nervous than mocking so he extended his arm again, the stubby razor blade glinting in his thick, dark fingers. “Think you’re the fuckin’ Joker or somethin’?”  
  
“Do I look like I’m laughing, Marcus?” Mr. Freakshow took a step closer, holding eye contact and spreading his arms out, palms up. “You and I need to have a talk.”  
  
Marcus took a step back, the heel of his boot teetering at the edge of a deep, water-filled pothole, forcing him to brace himself for a moment against the dumpster.  
  
“Do I make you nervous, Marcus? Big guy like you?” The man chuckled, a sound from deep in his chest, more like the thunder rumbling in the distance than a laugh. His forehead furrowed as he glared down at Marcus with his black-smudged eyes. “Tell me where I can find your friends, Marcus.”  
  
“The fuck you think you are, man? You don’t know who you’re messin’ with. Dante don’t take kindly to whack jobs fuckin’ wit’ his crew. You got a fuckin’ deathwish?!”  
  
The man’s laugh was boisterous and pure. It echoed down the alleyway, reverberating in Marcus’ ears. Marcus did his best to hold his ground, wishing desperately that he hadn’t left his .45 in the glovebox of the El Dorado. Chills ran over his skin as the man’s laugh trailed off and the menacing figure took another step closer.  
  
“Deathwish, Marcus?  ** _I. AM. DEATH._** ” The man stepped into Marcus’ space, face tipping down in a manic, terrorizing grin. “Now, where are they?”  
  
Marcus slashed across the man’s chest in desperation. He knew the blade was pathetic but it would hurt, it would draw blood, and then Marcus could cut his losses and get the fuck out of there. He felt the tearing of cloth, the ripping of flesh, under the razorblade but the clown didn’t cry out, he didn’t even flinch. Instead his long arm swooped in a wide arc and he snatched Marcus’ wrist in his huge right hand, yanking it up and making him lose grip on the measly weapon. He lifted Marcus’ sturdy frame like he weighed nothing, leaving the toes of his black Lugs scrambling on the wet pavement, unable to get balance or leverage.  
  
Thunder cracked, closer now, a flash of lightning illuminated the alley. Marcus stared at the blood pouring from the jagged wound he’d carved across the man’s abdomen. His tight, black tank top pulled back in an angry grin not unlike the man’s own. The pale flesh beneath it was sliced open and a torrent of red gushed out over the ruined skin and slashed black cotton.  
  
“Man, you must be  _dusted_  not to feel that shit,” Marcus croaked as he thrashed like a hooked trout.  
  
“Pain? This,” the man raked the long, pale fingers of his left hand over the gash in his own stomach. “This, Marcus, isn’t pain. I have known pain at a molecular level. Pain has transformed me. Pain was my  _maker_. I welcome it. Do you?”  
  
He was still smiling as he brought his hand to Marcus’ face, dragging his bloodied fingertips down Marcus forehead, nose, lips, and chin, painting him with crimson.  
  
“Houston. Jonsey. Dante. Where are they?” The man’s hand tightened around Marcus’ wrist. Marcus heard the bone and sinew pop before he felt the white-hot lightning bolts of pain rush down his limb, tearing an agonized scream from his lips. For a moment the alley closed in around him, brick and grime circling his vision like he was being flushed down a filthy drain.  
  
“Marcus…” The man’s hand loosened slightly and he lowered his hold a few inches. Marcus’ wrist throbbed but his soles were on the ground again. He sucked in air like a drowning man, tears stinging his eyes.  
  
“Okay, okay! Jesus Christ, okay,” Marcus gasped. “Look, man, I ain’t seen Jonesy in weeks. Houston’s holed up at the Bel-Air Motel off the interstate and Dante’s at the club, man, like always. The fuckin’ Gallery.”  
  
“Thank you, Marcus,” the man said, his hands suddenly landing heavy on Marcus’ biceps. “That’s a beautiful coat…” He said almost reverently as he stroked the leather, tugging Marcus closer by the lapel.  
  
The serrated, stag-horn handled blade sunk into Marcus’ sternum slowly, the sound like the muffled suck of gravely mud under Sam’s boots. Marcus gurgled from somewhere deep and low in his chest as the tip of the knife slid into his esophagus. The blade didn’t spark or let of a noxious, sulfurous stench like the hundreds of times it had been used to kill before. It still parted the mortal man’s flesh like butter, muscle and bone parting readily for the finely honed steel. Marcus collapsed to his knees as Sam divested him of the leather trench coat. It might be a little short on him but at least it would fit his shoulders.  
  
Thunder crashed loudly overhead as the sky opened up again. Rain pelted Marcus’ skin, his blood washing into the grey muck filling the puddles that surrounded his twitching body. Sam pulled the jacket on, happy for the residual warmth of Marcus’ body on his own chilled skin.  
  
It was raining that night too, the night Sam lost Dean. He wiped the blade clean on his thigh, vengeance surging righteous in his veins. One down, three to go.  
  


 

Sam’s memories slotted in easily against the jagged, bloody edges of the present.

  
It was midday and warm, golden light filtered in through the dusty classroom windows, elm trees that were just starting to leaf cast lacy shadows across the faces of Sam’s students.  
  
Chalk scratched stark white across the dusty blackboard. The words, in Sam’s swooping script read,  _Serva me, servabo te_.  
  
Sam turned to face his class. Teenagers, just like those in any other school, in any other town, only these were enrolled by devout parents into Vitus Christian Academy in Lawrence, Kansas.  
  
“Can anyone translate?”  
  
Sam straightened the knot of his tie where it had bunched up under the v-neck of his navy blue sweater while he waited for an answer. All he got was a cough, a soft giggle, and the shuffling of feet on linoleum. Eyes everywhere but on Sam, their Latin instructor for the next 45 minutes.  
  
“Come on, guys. This one is easy.” Sam put down the chalk and wiped his fingers off on his grey slacks. He took a small sip of his lukewarm coffee and gave them more time. The class squirmed in the silence as Sam grinned softly to himself, wishing he didn’t enjoy their discomfort quite so much.  
  
“It says ‘ _save me and I will save you_.’” So much for the renaissance of dead languages.  
  
“Alright, have it your way. Open your books to page 138, we’re going to talk about the use of allusion in ancient literature.”  
  
Now the words on the chalkboard say “O _ne day you will lose everything you have._ ”  
  
Ironically, Sam didn’t  _have_  all that much. He never did. He never wanted much, either. Not really. He thought he did for a time, while he was young and idealistic, unable to accept the simple truths of his own existence. Sam wasted his adolescence wanting what circumstances said he could never have. An ordinary, apple-pie life behind a white picket fence and a manicured lawn. A job he could talk to his friends about. A framed diploma from some prestigious university on his library wall. No more lies. No more secrets. No more fear. It sounded like paradise to the Sam he used to be. He could see now they were just the frustrated dreams of a boy not in control of his own fate. It took a while for him to accept, but looking back, those were dreams of naiveté and self-indulgence. Sam’s lot in life didn’t make room for much of either.  
  
He was at peace with that now. Proud of the years he spent on the razor’s edge between life and death, good and evil. Years he spent with his father and brother, fighting the good fight, no matter the damage it did to their own lives. They saved people. They made a difference. But when Sam took a step back and really looked at his life, at his hopes and dreams, at his motivation for getting out of bed in the morning, there was truly only one thing that kept him going. Only one thing he would always fight for without question. Kill for. Learn to really live for.  _Dean_.  
  
Acclimating to civilian life once he and Dean quit the life was a balancing act, something Sam had to consciously work at every single day. It was hard some days to stop himself from being hardened and cynical. A challenge to look at the people around him with anything but self-righteous pity. Even once they found some semblance of normalcy Sam would sometimes find himself gazing sadly at the faces of his co-workers, fellow commuters, shoppers at the grocery store, trying not to judge. They were all cogs in the big, cosmic machine, working sixty hours a week to make enough money to afford a huge house in the suburbs they would never spend any time in. In debt up to their eyeballs while happily carting their kids off to expensive universities as soon as they were grown. Watching those children grow into strangers, fated to start the cycle all over again.  
  
Most days it only hurt Sam’s heart a little. Other days it made him angry. Most people had no idea how good they had it and yet they took the peace for granted. Sam, he could count the things that were really his on one hand, the things that really mattered.  
  
Even with all the introspection Sam did, he found it a bitter pill to swallow. How true it was that you didn’t really knew what you had until it was gone.  
  
The words " _sorry for your loss_ " burnt like salt in Sam's wounds. Dean wasn't lost. He was torn, tear-streamed and screaming, from Sam's bloodied hands. Most of what was good in Sam died that day too, twisted him into something beyond hunter or monster, someone with nothing but the rubble of tragedy to comfort him. Sirens filled his ears, the rushing of wind. Rain, blood, and fire filled his vision until time lost all meaning and it all went black.


	2. Durate et vosmet rebus servate secundis ~ Carry on and preserve yourselves for better times

2.

_**Durate et vosmet rebus servate secundis** _

  
_Carry on and preserve yourselves for better times_

  


  
  
Dean made no secret of believing their lives would end bloody but Sam was able to change that. Thanks to Bobby.  
  
Bobby Singer. Sometimes surrogate father, their brother in arms, even Sam and Dean’s home base, for a time. For all that Bobby loved Sam and Dean, he never really knew them. He didn’t want to once he faced the truth of the Winchester boys head on, finally looked hard and long at what their father had always chalked up to a byproduct of their upbringing. Maybe it was, but Sam and Dean both believed their connection ran deeper than blood. You didn’t choose your soulmate. The love of your life. They were one another’s like darkness and light, one unable to exist without the other.  
  
When Bobby finally let himself see what Sam and Dean truly were to one another, John had long since turned to ashes in the wind. He cried angry, soul-sick tears. He told them the truth would have killed John and that he didn’t care to lay eyes on them ever again. They were prepared for that inevitable day of reckoning and while they left Bobby with heavy hearts, their lives didn’t change all that much. Bobby fared much worse. Turned out that maybe Sam and Dean took care of him as much, if not more, than he took care of them. Sam and Dean gave him something to live for. Their love, as twisted as it was in the eyes of the world, gave him hope.  
  
The sad truth was that Bobby too had been twisted by the tragedies he’d witnessed over the years. All the fight in him sucked away by too many dark times, too many loved ones lost, and too much cheap whiskey. His liver was riddled with tumors on top of the cirrhosis. When Sam and Dean were finally back at his side he looked at them with a wry smile. The smile of a man accepting his fate, broken by the world, and ready to go out with both middle fingers flying high. Dean went for coffee and Bobby pressed a folded up envelope into Sam’s hand.  
  
"You boys are the only good thing I see left in this world anymore.” Bobby’s skin was ashen and sagging, his liver spots a sickly grey against his weathered face. He sighed, eyes distant and unfocused, pointed up at the drop ceiling of his shabby VA hospital room. “I don't claim to understand or condone what's between you but two I know one thing for sure, Sam. Dean will never leave this life. He don't know another way to live.”  
  
Sam slipped his hand into Bobby’s and squeezed, breathing deep and swallowing the lump in his throat.  
  
“You've seen it, Sam. Out there in the real world. I know it. There’s a place for you two to be together. It ain't your job to save the world, boy. Just save each other. Your mama deserves that. Let her sacrifice be so that you can be free.” A weak stream of tears trickled from the corners of Bobby’s eyes as they fluttered closed.  
  
It was quiet except for Bobby’s ragged breathing and the electric flicker of the fluorescent bulbs. Dean had been gone a long time. He could never stand hospitals.  
  
“Sam, I want you and Dean to have that.” Bobby opened his eyes, it was clearly a struggle. He turned his head toward Sam and gave his hand a weak squeeze in return. “It’s what’s left of the insurance money from when the scrap yard went up in flames a few years back. Promise me you’ll find a place to start over. Find meaning in bein’ alive. I know your daddy thought otherwise but it ain’t all on your shoulders. There’s others out there, fightin’ the good fight. You’ve given enough, leave it to them. Promise me, Sam.”  
  
Dean came back with coffee to Sam sitting in the room’s lone chair, his head in his hands. Bobby was gone and Sam didn’t have the words to comfort his brother.  
  


~~~~~~

  
Bobby didn’t know, no one did, but Sam had been putting money aside for years, too. Twenty dollars found on the sidewalk. Fifty dollars won in an honest game of pool. Five bucks in change left over from buying dinner. The rubber-banded wad of cash at the bottom of his duffle eventually found its way into a bank account, accruing interest as they lived off stolen credit cards. It was honest money, for the most part, money Sam earned. For some reason it gave Sam hope.  
  
With Bobby’s final gift, Sam finally had enough to buy it outright. The house in Lawrence. He didn’t plan it, not exactly. But he kept an eye on real estate listings in Lawrence for years.  
  
He told himself it was a stupid idea a million times, but he couldn’t figure out any other way to ask Dean for what he wanted. The words never seemed right and the timing was always wrong. It took him months to finally work up the nerve, even after he bought the house. They wrapped up a case in Springfield, Missouri and Sam decided. It was time.  
  
"Hey, do you mind if I drive, Dean? I – uh – I got you something. For your birthday. I’d like to take you to where it is. If that’s okay."  
  
"What?” Dean’s hand was in his pocket already wrapped around the Impala’s keys. He paused and cocked his eyebrow at Sam. “My birthday was, like, two months ago, dude. You bought me a big ass steak dinner, a lap dance from that big titted girl with all the tattoos, and then you let me top when we got home. I don’t need anything else, Sammy. It was seriously one of the best birthdays ever."  
  
Sam rolled his eyes and held out his hand for the keys. "I know, Dean, but I’m serious. I got you something… bigger. This is just the first time we've been close enough for me to show you."  
  
Dean shook his head and pulled the keys out of his pocket.  
  
"Besides, I was uh… scared? I was, I mean I still am. I’m worried that you'll hate it.” Sam felt like a little kid in that moment, his cheeks and ears pinking up as he kicked his toe in the dirt to give himself something to focus on that wasn’t Dean’s intense stare.  
  
"Sam you're kinda freaking me out here, man. I promise. If it’s big enough to have you this worked up I can pretty much guarantee I will love it." He planted a soft, gentle kiss to Sam’s cheekbone as he pressed the keys into his palm. “Let’s go.”  
  
Dean spent the entire drive trying to guess what it was. He's not even close.  
  
At the state line Sam made Dean close his eyes but he kept peeking. Sam pulled over and gave Dean the laptop and Sam’s headphones, making him to promise not to look up until Top Gun was over.  
  
Dean didn’t say anything when they finally pulled up. Sam saw his brother’s eyes flicker over the red and white  **SOLD**  sign at the edge of the lawn. Dean got out of the car before Sam even killed the engine. He stood on the sidewalk staring up at the house like it was the Empire State Building. It was mid-day, muggy as hell and the lawn was in bad need of mowing. Sam sat in the car until he convinced himself Dean wasn’t going to make a break for it or chew him out.  
  
"It's a different color," Dean said softly once Sam joined him on the sidewalk. "Since the last time..."  
  
The silence that followed was long and Sam’s nerves settled as he listened to the meadowlarks chirping and the soft hum of the highway in the distance.  
  
"The bank owned it. I think it was gonna go up for auction pretty soon. It probably had squatters living in it or something. I, uh, I haven’t even been here yet, bought it sight unseen. The realtor thought I was nuts. Paid for it outright with a cashier’s check."  
  
He put the house keys into Dean's hand and slipped the car keys into his own pocket.  
  
"If you don't want to do this I can just pay someone to fix it up and put it back on the market, you know? Probably make a few bucks on the investment."  
  
Dean didn’t reply. He just walked up the driveway slowly, still looking at the house like it was a ghost.  
  
"You wanna bring the stuff in, Sammy? If not, I can come back out later..." Dean’s voice faded as he gazed up at the house. Their house.  
  
"I didn't have the utilities turned on yet..."  
  
"I don't mind, Sam. We've had worse."  
  


~~~~~~

  
It didn’t take much effort to put down roots in Lawrence. They didn’t have much more than the clothes on their backs and the contents of the Impala’s trunk to call their own. They had a storage shed in South Dakota with a few boxes of Dad’s things, books, weapons, some stuff of Bobby’s. They didn’t even have to rent a U-Haul. In that regard, the move was easy. They silently reassured one another that the rest would just fall into place.  
  
The domestic life changed them slowly, entwined their hearts and minds in new ways, the thoughts of a future that didn’t end in blood and fire made them fiercer to protect their future together. The promise of something to hold on to had given each of them more to lose and hope became a double edged sword. It turned out the things that are yours, the things you build together in the hope of finding happiness and stability, need protecting as much as all those innocent people they saved over the years. Home bases needed their moats and turrets, too.  
  
They still took cases for a while, both of them finding their born and bred wanderlust hard to escape. In the time before they were both gainfully employed they found it hard to say no when a case came their way, when an old hunting associate called or when something in the paper didn’t seem quite right. It worked for a while but then work started following them home, in the most literal sense.  
  
A demon using some back-water cloaking spell showed up on their doorstep professing to be a fellow hunter in need of help. Dean stabbed the petite brunette through the eye with his demon-killing blade before she even made it past the foyer. After that, Dean left for the better part of a week to hunt down and kill every demon he could find within a fifty mile radius. Sam had just gotten his teaching job at St. Vitus and Dean wanted him home, researching every way in their power to ward their property against detection and intrusion by the forces of either heaven or hell. They were thorough, the spells were strong, and it worked.  
  
It quieted down after that, the hunting gigs fell in their laps less and less often, and by summer Dean found a job as a foreman with a local contracting company. He worked major construction projects on roadways and downtown infrastructure, mostly. It paid well and the resume was a bit easier to fake than Sam’s teaching certificate had been.  
  
Being outside doing physical labor gave Dean what he needed to overcome his intrinsic need for freedom, that itching under his skin that threatened to drive him crazy when they stayed in any one place for too long. Long hours working from dawn until dusk in Topeka or Kansas City were good for him and it had the added benefit of making him first choice to run the crew when overtime was needed.  
  
Their nest egg grew as Dean’s skin turned nut brown and the laugh lines around his eyes became more defined. Blonde highlights ran through his hair and his shoulders broadened. More and more often, Sam caught Dean smiling to himself for no reason at all. A stillness settled in Dean that Sam found immense comfort in as they sat on their porch, watching the trees blossom and the grass grow to golf course perfection under Dean’s careful watch.  
  
 _CAW! CAW! CAW!_  
  
Dean took a long pull off his beer, his brow furrowed.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Sam chuckled.  
  
 _CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW!_  
  
“Poe’s pal over there in the oak tree! Motherfucker’s been at it for like forty-five minutes. Drivin’ me fuckin’ crazy,” Dean grumbled, getting up and going down to the stoop. He bent over and picked up one of the grey silver-dollar sized river stones they had put in around the shrubs at the front of the house, squinting up at the tree in the corner of their front yard.  
  
“It’s a crow, Dean. Not a raven. Ravens are like twice that size,” Sam quipped, grinning at the love of his life who was eyeing up his target. “Don’t throw that, Dean, you’ll just hit the neighbor’s car.”  
  
Dean chucked the stone anyway, his body arching gracefully, the small rock arcing through the air. Dean always had insanely good aim, no matter the weapon.  
  
 _CAW! CAW!_  
  
The gorgeous black bird hopped up to the branch above a split second before Dean’s rock hit the tree trunk, about a foot below the crow’s perch. The sound it made was not unlike the crack of a baseball bat hitting a home run but the bird only tilted its head for a moment, fluffing its feathers out before pecking against the bark again.  
  
“It’s probably mating season,” Sam said thoughtfully.  
  
“Yeah, well I wish he’d find himself a girlfriend already so I could enjoy my beer in peace,” Dean huffed as he sat back down in the rocking chair next to Sam’s. They’d gotten them at Cracker Barrel but they were insanely comfortable and ended up being where they spent most of their Sunday afternoons.  
  
“Don’t be so grumpy,” Sam said tenderly, running his hand up Dean’s bicep. “Let’s go inside. I need to grade some papers and that lasagna you put in the oven smells so good my stomach is trying to claw its way out.”  
  
“It’s gotta sit for at least half an hour before we eat or else the cheese will just ooze out everywhere.” Dean was still grumpy as Sam’s hand carded through the back of his hair. Dean had been letting it get a bit longer and it shined with golden highlights from all the time he was spending outdoors.  
  
Dean finished off his beer and picked Sam’s empty up off the small table between their chairs. “You want another one?” He asked, his eyes meeting Sam’s.  
  
It was the simple, normal moments like those that meant the most. Ones that made their past lives feel like someone else’s legend. Sam’s heart swelled in his chest and he cupped Dean’s face, letting his thumb run over the stubble between the corner of his mouth and his cheekbone.  
  
“I love you, you know that?” Sam said, leaning closer. He was pretty sure Dean still wasn’t all that used to hearing the words but as Sam pressed their mouths together he felt it reciprocated down to his very core. Dean still made his knees weak, even though he had been Sam’s his entire life.  
  
“You’re such a sap,” Dean joked, even though his breath was a little ragged from the kiss paired with Sam’s swooping, romantic confession. The sun was going down and the horizon was on fire in shades of amber and pink. Dean’s eyes sparkled, slightly wet for a moment before he turned away from Sam and headed inside.  
  
“Domestic life looks good on you,” Sam called after him. He rubbed his thumb over the moisture on his bottom lip as the screen door banged shut. He sat for a few moments more, breathing deep and watching the sun’s hasty exit below the horizon. The crow in the oak tree gave him one final  _CAW_  and flew away, its huge wings whooshing in the relative quiet. Sam’s eyes followed it until it became a tiny, black speck in the darkening sky.


	3. A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi ~ A precipice in front, wolves behind

3.

_**A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi** _

  
_A precipice in front, wolves behind_

 

  


  
“Nice car, man.” The thick, Jersey accent sounded completely out of place in the heartland, catching Sam’s attention immediately. He adjusted the side mirror to get a better look at the man who gassing up a steel grey Audi at the pump behind the Impala. He was tall and lean with long hair and sharp European features, dressed like a he walked out of a Scorsese film.  
  
“Thanks. She’s definitely a classic.” Dean smiled and ran his hand over Baby’s shiny black fender.  
  
“How much you want for her?” The man asked nonchalantly, flipping his wavy brown hair over his shoulder. It was incredibly long, cascading down the back of his crisp Armani sport coat that was a shade or two lighter than his ride’s paintjob.  
  
Dean laughed, tilting his head back as Sam watched his face in the reflection of the man’s five hundred dollar sunglasses. Dean might not have realized it yet but the man was dead serious. The pearl-white cashmere scarf draped across his neck probably cost more than Sam’s last two paychecks combined.  
  
“She’s not for sale, but thanks,” Dean smiled proudly as he screwed the gas cap back in place. It was far from the first offer Dean had received for their Dad’s hand-me-down. He took good care of the Impala and back when they were on the road she always got lots of comments. Truckers, bikers, and car collectors in every state came out of the woodwork for the Black Beauty. It had been a while since the last offer, especially now that they had finally put down roots.  
  
“Come on, now everything has a price, buddy. I’ll give you sixty grand.”  
  
“Not a chance,” Dean didn’t even bat an eyelash to decline. He chuckled as he screwed the gas cap back in place but he was sizing the man up out of the corner of his eye now, just like Sam was. Sam’s hand twitched over the door handle as he watched the man’s lips tick up in a pained smirk before he upped the ante.  
  
“Fine, a hundred grand,” he snorted.  
  
“Well that’s very generous but it’s not the money, man. I’m telling you the car’s not for sale, never will be,” Dean said firmly, giving the man a curt nod before turning to walk away. “Have a good one.”  
  
“You sure you don’t want to check with your boyfriend there before turnin’ me down, pretty boy?” The man snarled, cocking his head toward Sam. “Everything has a price.”  
  
The man walked around the front of his Audi. Leather gloved hands perched on his hips with his head tilted down and glaring at Dean over the top of his shades. He clearly wasn’t the kind of guy who was used to hearing  _no_.  
  
Dean slid into the driver’s seat next to Sam, both of them looking in Baby’s mirrors at the demanding stranger. “Jeez, was that guy pushy or what?” Dean acted casual but there was tension quivering underneath his skin. If he still carried a gun he’d have slipped it out of the back waistband of his jeans and had it cocked in his lap by now.  
  
“Yeah,” Sam’s voice had a tremor in it he didn’t intend. “Let’s go home, Dean.”  
  
Dean took a deep breath as he started the engine.  
  
Sam watched the man stare them down in the rearview mirror.  
  
“ _Fuckin’ faggots_.” The rumble of the Impala ensured Sam couldn’t hear the words but he’d seen those syllables on plenty of lips over the years.  
  
A group of guys, an ominous collection of criminals, joined the Audi’s driver as Dean pulled out of the Quick Stop parking lot, filing out of the bathroom door at the side of the gas station, laughing and shoving one another like children. Sam watched them fade into the distance in the rearview mirror, their eyes burning tiny pinpricks into the back of Sam’s skull.  
  
“Let it go, Sam,” Dean said softly, glancing up at Sam’s eyes in the mirror’s reflection. He let his hand settle gently on Sam’s thigh. It only trembled for a moment before Sam closed his hand over it and squeezed.


	4. Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit ~ Perhaps one day remembering even these things will bring pleasure

4.

_**Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit** _

_Perhaps one day remembering even these things will bring pleasure_   
  
  


  
  
Some memories hurt more than others.  
  
“This is all so domestic, Sammy.” Dean reminded Sam almost daily and yet he didn’t attempt to change a thing about their lives. They bought a fancy set of dishes and a nice set of pots and pans. They filled the pantry, went to the movies on the weekends and worked on the house. Their house.  
  
To say their family home was a fixer-upper was an understatement, but they invested time and money in making it comfortable. That Saturday they spent painting the living room and changing out the tattered, sun bleached curtains with something more to their tastes.  
  
Sam watched Dean quietly from the doorway into the kitchen as he pried open the first can of paint and sloshed it into the roller tray. Dean peeled off his t-shirt as an afterthought, his already paint-speckled jeans hanging low on his hips as he loaded up the roller with the “golden wheat” hue they’d chosen together.  
  
The light that streamed in through the windows was a paler shade of yellow, stripes of it curving over Dean’s biceps through the Roman style blinds Sam installed after they got back from Home Depot a few hours earlier.  
  
Sam came into the room and sat his bottle of water on the mantle, grinning at the tattered Led Zeppelin tour poster Dean had pinned above it. The corners were curling and full of push-pin holes and it had some water damage near the top but even Sam had to admit the artwork was something special.  
  
The words  _LED ZEPPELIN, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 1977_  were printed along the bottom in brilliant red in Zeppelin’s classic font. In the center was a woman with dark hair that hung wavy and loose around her angular face. Her arms were outstretched and she held a miniature, curving stairway in one hand and a tarot card of the Hermit in the other. She wore a long, black, feathered robe that opened down the center to reveal her pale sternum, belly button, and the slightest curve of her breasts. She had an ivory harlequin mask on her face that had slipped down enough to see that she had three eyes instead of two. The one in the center of her forehead was open, bloodshot red with an ebony iris, while the other two were closed. The white mask she wore had a blood red crack across the bridge of its nose and its eyes, which were also closed, were streaked with black paint. The mouth had been stained black as well with a clown-like smile curving up toward the mask’s cheekbones. Her fingertips were dipped in black as if she had painted the mask herself.  
  
Sam wasn’t sure where it had come from, exactly. A box of their Dad’s stuff or a record store somewhere when Dean was a teenager. Either way, Dean positively beamed when Sam let him hang it up on the condition he take it down when they finally got the room finished. There was still hardwood flooring to put in and the fireplace to retile so Sam had a feeling they’d be under the watchful gaze of the haunting, psychedelic woman on the poster for a while yet. Maybe Sam would get it framed for Dean when the time finally came to take her down. The artwork had grown on him, too.  
  
“Stop starin’ at my ass and help me out here, would ya?” Dean smirked at Sam over his shoulder as he stepped up onto the chair he’d pulled out of the kitchen to use as a makeshift stepstool.  
  
“Sorry, I got… distracted.” Sam’s eyes returned to his brother, catching on the beads of sweat trickling down the center of his back. Dean’s arm was outstretched as he laid down a thick layer of paint on the wall. The position had the effect of elongating Dean’s torso, accentuating the narrow twist of his hips, sunlight painting tiger stripes across his freckled back and shoulders. The golden paint looked gorgeous in the late afternoon light but nothing was as gorgeous as Dean was. Safe, happy, and smiling.  
  
Sam pulled off his own t-shirt and toed off his sneakers to join Dean on the canvas tarps he had laid down to protect the floor.  
  
“There’s another roller over there, slacker,” Dean scolded with a smirk on his face. Sam ignored the roller and came up behind Dean, wrapping his arms around his waist and pressing his lips to the damp center of his back.  
  
“You’re sorely mistaken if you think this is going to get you out of painting, dude,” Dean chided even as he sank back into Sam’s embrace, paint tray and roller still in his hands. Sam ran his hands up Dean’s sides and rubbed his cheek against the sweaty plane of his back, sighing contently and closing his eyes. Sam licked his lips, tasting Dean’s sweat and smiling softly to himself.  
  
“I’ll help you in a minute,” Sam promised. “Let me get the ladder outta the garage so you don’t fall off this rickety ass chair and break your neck.”  
  
Dean twisted in Sam’s arms and looked back at him over his shoulder. “Take this before I get Krylon in your hair, Sammy.”  
  
Sam took the paint tray and roller from Dean and set them down next to the paint can, putting the lid back on and wiping his hands off on his jeans.  
  
“This chair can hold me just fine, by the way,” Dean said as he hopped down. “I’m pretty sure this exact chair has held both of us, actually. About twenty minutes after the dude from Craigslist dropped it off, if I remember correctly.” Dean licked his lips and looked down at Sam where he was crouching next to the painting supplies.  
  
“Hmmm, yeah my memory’s foggy on that, Dean,” Sam sat back on his knees and watched Dean’s hands play across the back of the chair. “Maybe we can test it out again to be sure, save me a trip out to the garage for the ladder…?”  
  
“You won’t be content until we christen every room in the house so why not,” Dean chuckled, “There’s still a few hours of light left.” He thumbed open the button on his jeans and ran his fingers up the golden brown trail of fine hairs leading to his belly button. “Come here.”  
  
Sam crawled across the tarp to Dean, slipping his finger through one of Dean’s belt loops to pull him to the front of the chair. Dean’s hands joined Sam’s in pushing his jeans down off his hipbones. Dean’s thickening cock twitched and he hissed softly as the denim slid over it, commando again so no boxers to peel off. Sam kissed Dean’s abdomen softly, letting his damp lips drag over Dean’s salty skin as his jeans fall in a pool around his ankles on the floor. Sam breathed deep, the musky, sharp smell of Dean’s sweat making his own dick chub up in his pants. He dragged his fingers down the jut of Dean’s hipbones sliding around back to cup his brother’s ass, letting his teeth scrape over smooth, soft skin.  
  
Sam pushed Dean’s hips back softly as he looked up into his brother’s reverent face. Dean’s eyes were soft with love but he bit his lips hungrily as his hands played over Sam’s shoulders. He sat back onto the vinyl seat, spreading his legs wide so Sam can slot between them. His hips bucked involuntarily as Sam’s huge hands slid up his thighs, his cock beginning to weep, needy for Sam’s affection.  
  
“I thought we were going to see if this vinyl and chrome monstrosity could hold both of us,” Dean said a bit breathlessly as he pushed Sam’s hair away from his face. Sam licked into Dean’s mouth, letting his abs press against his brother’s cock.  
  
“First things first…” Sam grinned as he fell back on his haunches and licked a broad stripe up the inside of Dean’s pale thigh. “And it’s not a ‘monstrosity,’ it’s an antique.”  
  
Sam wrapped his lips around the head of Dean’s cock before he could utter any more words on the matter, pulling a needy, broken groan from his brother. Sam lapped at the salty-sweet precome that had dribbled down the underside of Dean’s dick, breathing deep through his nose as he took Dean’s length into his throat. He bobbed up and down on Dean, swirling his tongue over the underside of his dick, teasing more precome and breathless little whimpers from him, mind falling back to that night a few weeks prior where Dean had ridden him hard and desperate on this chair in their breakfast nook.  
  
Sam’s hands bracketed Dean’s hips and pulled his ass closer to the edge of the chair, spreading his legs even wider. He came up for air for a moment, letting Dean’s swollen, spit-slicked cock slip from between his lips to fall heavy and twitching against Dean’s abdomen. Dean followed the movement, pushing his ass out over the edge of the seat and gripping the chair’s frame to keep himself stable.  
  
“Jesus, Sammy,” Dean groaned as Sam pushed his thighs back and let his breath ghost over Dean’s needy hole. He let the tip of his tongue tease playfully at the edge of Dean’s rim, smiling as Dean squirmed, his body wordlessly begged for Sam’s tongue. Sam flicked his tongue, soft and wet, over the sensitive little pucker, obsessed with how pink and tight Dean was for him even though they’d already fucked once, before their trip to Home Depot.  
  
“Tell me what you want, Dean,” Sam said before pressing another soft, plush kiss to Dean’s asshole. Dean’s hips bucked up and he swung his left leg up over Sam’s shoulder, wrapping his opposite ankle around the leg of the chair.  
  
“Christ, Sammy, please,” Dean gasped, “get your tongue in me, fuckin’ need it.”  
  
Sam squeezed Dean’s thigh where it was draped over his shoulder and indulged his brother’s request. He pointed his tongue and pressed it into the center of Dean’s hole, groaning against it as he slipped into the hot ring of muscle. He stretched his tongue out as far as he could, wriggling it deep until the root of it ached from the effort. He held as still as he could, pressing deep as he let Dean ride his tongue, humming gently as he heard Dean whimper and moan at the intrusion that wasn’t nearly as thick or as deep as he needed. He was doing his best to cling to the chair as his ass slipped from the sweat and saliva pooling beneath it. The whimpers became more and more desperate as he failed to get the stimulation he needed, not able to use his hands to do anything but cling to the chair’s chrome frame.  
  
Sam sealed his lips around Dean’s hole as he finally gave his tongue a rest and let it slip out of Dean’s ass. He sucked hard, nipping at Dean’s rim and teasing it with his tongue before pulling away. He sucked his long fingers into his mouth to wet them, only making Dean wait a moment before slipping two inside up to the first knuckle.  
  
Dean opened around him with a choked-out groan, his hips stilling and thighs quivering from the exertion. Sam licked up over Dean’s taint, pressing his tongue into the tangy, hairy skin as he curled his fingers on the inside, giving Dean’s prostate a gentle squeeze from both inside and out. Dean writhed and groaned beneath him as he licked up the underside of Dean’s lightly furred balls, sucking each one into his mouth gently as he stroked his fingers inside him.  
  
“Hang on,” Sam whispered softly before licking up the underside of Dean’s straining cock. Fingers still working in Dean’s hole, he tugged at Dean’s hipbone with his other hand, coaxing him to let the plush curve of his ass slide down further off the edge of the chair. He pulled at Dean’s calf to uncoil his ankle from the leg of the chair, slinging it low around his hip instead as Sam rose up on his knees. He pulled his fingers free, smearing the head of his cock with spit and precome, wetting it as best he could. He gathered his saliva and spit into his fingers, rubbing the moisture over Dean’s opened rim, pushing his fingers inside again to hold it open for the head of his dick.  
  
Sam was tall but the chair was still a little too high for him to sink into Dean completely but it gave his big, thick cock a wonderful angle to rut against Dean’s prostate , take him apart before pulling him down into his lap, impaling him fully.  
  
Dean’s head thrashed against the back of the chair, his mouth hanging open, and his lips bitten red. Despite the ridiculous angle he squeezed at Sam’s torso with his legs, heels digging roughly into Sam’s back, urging him deeper, harder.  
  
“Oh fuck, yes, Sammy,” Dean begged, “don’t fuckin’ stop, please.”  
  
Sam’s thrusts were shallow little rocks, the dripping, fat head of his cock shoved right up against Dean’s sweet spot, grinding into it mercilessly as Dean’s muscles vibrated with the effort of keeping himself steady on the chair. His hips did their best to give them both the little bit of movement they needed to remind them they were still two bodies writhing together and not one, giant, interconnected raw nerve pulsing with need.  
  
“Deeper, Sammy, please. Fuck!” Dean’s voice broke, his hips bucking as Sam finally relented and sat back on his haunches, pulling Dean down into his lap. Dean’s grip on the chair melted and he slid down hot and wet onto the length of Sam’s girthy dick. It punched the air out of Dean and he gasped sharply, his cock jerking as he came hard against his own abdomen.  
  
“Fuck,” Sam groaned as he shoved Dean’s hips down hard, sheathing himself completely in his brother’s infinite tightness. He wrapped his hand around Dean’s cock and stroked him through the rest of his orgasm, letting go when it got too sensitive, dragging his fingers through the stripes of come decorating Dean’s chest.  
  
“Can you turn over for me, babe?” Sam asked softly as he slipped his come slicked fingers into his mouth for a taste. “Need to fuck you.”  
  
Dean smiled even though his eyes were still squeezed shut and he was panting in the aftermath of his orgasm. Sam helped hold Dean steady as he shifted his weight to one knee and arched his back to slide up off Sam’s still diamond hard cock. Sam slicked up his dick with Dean’s come as he watched his brother wobbily turn over and rest his head against the chair cushion, hands gripping the frame. He pulled Dean’s hips up and back, making his lower back arch, presenting his pretty, needy hole for Sam’s use.  
  
Sam rubbed the head of his dick up and down Dean’s asscrack, nudging into his hole. “Ready, baby?” Sam asked, already knowing the answer.  
  
Dean moaned against the chair cushion and pushed his hips back, urging Sam on.  
  
“Never get tired of watching you take my cock. So fucking gorgeous, Dean.”  
  
Sam thumbed the head in past Dean’s already swollen rim, groaning at the sensation of Dean’s come slicking the way far better than Sam’s spit and precome.  
  
“God, it’s like you were made for me,” Sam groaned, his head tilting back as he slid home. Gripping Dean’s hips possessively as he rocked in as deep as he could go.  
  
“Fuckin’ was, Sammy. Yours, only yours,” Dean choked out as Sam began a languid pace of deep, smooth thrusts. “For fucking ever…”  
  
Sam spread his fingers out between Dean’s shoulder blades, running his huge hand down the graceful curve of Dean’s spine as he fucked into him, holding him steady with his hand dug into Dean’s other hip. The grip was punishing and would probably bruise but it was worth it to watch Dean’s ass spread open, split wide on Sam’s length.  
  
Sam traced his thumb over Dean’s stretched out rim, stroking it as he turned him inside out. The chair creaked under Dean’s weight and Sam’s thrusts. The sounds egged Sam on, like he was suddenly hell bent on breaking the 50’s era furniture. He slipped his fingers between their bodies, pressing into Dean’s taint, wishing there was more slick so he could sink his fingers inside too, right up next to his dick, and wring another orgasm out of his brother.  
  
He was too close though, Dean’s body quivering and open for him already, his greedy, pink asshole begging to be filled up. A little choked out groan escaped Sam’s lips as he took Dean’s waist in his hands and started fucking into him in earnest.  
  
“Fuck yeah, Sammy. Gonna come for me?” Dean twisted his head back over his shoulder to look at Sam, sweat beading over his face and fire still burning in his eyes. “God, yeah. Fuck me. Fill me up, baby boy.”  
  
Sam’s eyes slammed shut and he drove himself home, his pelvis flush with Dean’s ass, thighs trembling and quivering as he shot deep in Dean’s guts. He absently let his hand trail down over Dean’s half-hard dick as he coasted the wave of his orgasm. They fell together sticky and sweaty against the tarp, Sam’s dick slipping come-slicked out of Dean’s ass, pushing a droplet of come back up into Dean’s fucked-out hole with his thumb and sucking the pad of his finger clean.  
  
They lay there, letting their breathing return to normal as the golden light in the sky faded to violet and indigo. Dean finally pushed up on his elbows, surveying the room and the progress, or lack of progress, they’d made so far. He looked down at Sam with a soft, sweet look in his eye.  
  
“So when we finally get this place completely habitable are you gonna make an honest woman outta me, Sammy?”  
  
He leaned down over Sam and pressed his plush lips against Sam’s forehead. Sam wrapped his arms around Dean’s shoulders and pulled him closer. Dean breathed deep and tipped his head down to rub his cheek against the smooth, sweaty plane of Sam’s chest. Sam knew his heart was still beating fast even though his orgasm had faded.  
  
“I thought you didn’t consider yourself marriage material,” Sam said, too softly and his voice too ragged for it to carry the joking tone Dean had intended.  
  
“Yeah, well…” Dean moved to sit up, letting his hand trail across Sam’s stomach. “Pretty sure gay brothers can’t get married, not in Kansas anyway.”  
  
Sam watched as Dean stood up, jeans in hand and walked down the hall to the bathroom. Sam reached blindly over his head for his own jeans, sitting up when he found them, crossing his legs and digging into his right pocket. He’d had the ring in his pocket for weeks.  
  
He pulled it out and let it drop into his palm, fingertips running over the inscription inside  _serva me, servabo te_. Save me and I will save you… It was a simple, antique silver band with scroll work etched into it that reminded Sam of Dean’s pearl handled Colt 1911. He didn’t know how Dean would react, even now. The comment was a joke, the timing wasn’t right…  
  
“Alright, loverboy. Enough slackin’.’” Dean flipped on the light and Sam balled up his fist, fingers folding fast over the scrap of silver in his hand.  
  
Dean had his jeans back on, sauntering back into the room to pick up the paint roller. He twisted it in his wrist and made little droplets of golden paint spatter across Sam’s feet. “Let’s get the first coat on and then I’ll wash the paint out of your hair.”  
  
The light in Dean’s smile was so blinding it hurt Sam’s heart. It pulled him out of his thoughts and to his feet. Sam wrapped his arms around his brother again, breathing in his skin, closing his eyes and letting Dean’s laugh echo in his ears.  
  
“How about you try not to get paint in my hair in the first place,” Sam said, cheek pressed against Dean’s shoulder.  
  
“No promises, Sammy.”


	5. Omnibus locis fit caedes ~ There is slaughter everywhere

5.

_**Omnibus locis fit caedes** _

  
_There is slaughter everywhere_

 

  


We can’t always keep the promises we make to the ones we love.  
  
“ _Us, together forever_.”  
  
“ _You and me against the world_.”  
  
“ _I’ll never let you go_.”  
  
Promises are just words. Impermanent, fleeting, like a song on the wind. Snippets of time, so many assurances, so many sentiments, meaningless now yet still searing into Sam’s consciousness. Flickering through Sam’s broken mind and bringing bright flashes of pain, making him rake his long fingers through his hair and tip his head between his knees to ease the dizzying nausea. He scraped his nails over the skin of his neck and shoulders, letting the words wash over him. An act of penance.  
  
“ _Don’t look, Sam. Don’t…_ ”  
  
Promises don’t bring peace.  
  
In the end it wasn’t a demon, or a god, or a mythical creature from lore that ruined their fleeting chance at happiness. Perhaps it was a byproduct of their own complacency. Maybe they were just too blinded by their freedom, the hearts in their eyes, or the possibility of a new beginning to be looking over their shoulders the way they should have.  
  
It wasn’t a death befitting a hunter, a hero. It was stupid, it was sloppy. It was meaningless and needlessly violent. It was a death that didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of the universe.  
  
Sam had these thoughts as he watched his brother die. His brother, his lover, his everything, ripped apart by jealousy and greed. Sam’s head pulled back, his throat sliced open, his mouth agape in a silent scream as Dean died at the hands of mortal men. The memory of it seemed more real than Sam’s waking life and it hurt more each time he watched it play like a snuff film on the back of his eyelids. The pain didn’t fade, it intensified, distilled down into something inky and pure until it was the only thing fueling him.  
  
Pain. What was pain to Sam Winchester, a man with scars striping his body like the crisscross of highways he grew up on? A man who hadn’t cried from a wound since he was a teenager? Pain was being trapped in a place beyond physical agony, in a place beyond life and death where he was frozen, numb to the bone, while his brain burned with hate as ferocious as hellfire. Sam was pinned by huge shards of ice stabbing his heart and mind, giving him flashes of the life he once had inter-spliced with horrific visions of that night… The blood, the fire, the look in his brother’s eyes as Sam lost him for good.  
  
With all the evil in the world, all the bloodthirsty things hiding in the dark, the worst of all was in the hearts and minds of men. Ordinary, ignorant, men who grew up thinking there were no consequences for their actions. The world proving the theory as their transgressions never caught up with them.  
  
“ _I gave you a chance, faggot. A hundred grand is a lot of money, especially when I’m going to have to have the car fumigated to get your queer ass stink outta the upholstery._ ”  
  
They fought back, hard. But they’d gotten soft. Sam could see now, stuck in his loop of horrifying replays. Not soft around the middle, just not ready to be hunted.  
  
Sam watched Dean die. Watched his body beaten, cut, and defiled by men with whiskey on their breath and PCP fueled lust in their eyes. Dean wouldn't let them have what was his so they took everything from him. And they made Sam watch.  
  
“ _I told you everything has a price._ ”


	6. Militat omnis amans ~ Every lover is a soldier

 

 

 

6.

_**Militat omnis amans** _

 

  _Every lover is a soldier_

 

 

  
  
Sam read about post-traumatic stress disorder at the library.

_…memories of the traumatic event can come back at any time… …the same fear and horror from when the event took place… …nightmares, flashbacks… …when you see, hear, or smell something that causes you to relive the event…_

  
It was hard for him to read much of anything after... After. For some reason the pages always felt like they just slipped through Sam’s fingers as he tried to turn them. The words jumbled in his head and he had to read the same passages over and over to extract any real meaning. Like his skull was full of clay.

_…the way you think about yourself and others changes… …you may not have positive or loving feelings toward other people and may stay away from relationships… ...you may think the world is completely dangerous, and no one can be trusted… …you may be jittery, alert, on the lookout for danger… …angry or irritable… …have a hard time sleeping or concentrating…_

  
Sam’s laptop had been destroyed that night. Smashed, along with his face, into the kitchen tile. He thought about buying a new one but never seemed to get around to it.

_…you may try to avoid situations or people that trigger memories… …you may forget about parts of the traumatic event or not be able to talk about them…_

  
The promise of memory was what made Sam go back home in the first place. He knew it would hurt, maybe more than he could bare, but the idea of feeling something besides soul-deep numbness drew him back to their doorstep.  
  
The welcome mat was soggy and faded beneath moldering piles of oak leaves. The front door had been broken off its hinges during the break in and the police had boarded it up with two layers of plywood. It was greying and swollen with moisture when Sam ripped it down with his bare hands. The crime scene tape he tore from the door fell from his hand with a whisper as his eyes took in the destruction.  
  
Cold moonlight painted wide swatches across the blood-stained carpet. Broken shards of glass refracted little glimmers of light as Sam stepped into the room, his boots grinding grey mud into the dried patches of rust brown on the carpet. The frame that had hung above the mantle lay in a starburst of glass and ash from the hearth. He knelt down in front of it and lifted it gently, a few remnants of glass falling out, tinkling to the tile in front of the fireplace as he hung it back up above the mantle. Sam stared solemnly at the haunting, masked face of the woman on the Zeppelin poster as he carefully straightened the frame.  
  
The memories hit him like a punch to the gut. It was so powerful that Sam crumpled to his knees again in the shattered glass. His hand against the cool marble framing the fireplace was the only thing keeping him from balling up in a fetal position on the floor as nausea and memory surged over him in horrible, dark waves.  
  
The wind was picking up outside and leaves skittered across the foyer, reminding Sam of the pattering of puppy feet, exited scratching at the door jam. The pained whimper and yelp that woke him up that night. Thunder outside turned to the echo of wood splintering as the door was kicked in. A voice in the darkness, sobbing, begging as Sam’s hand slipped from the cold marble and he fell to his hands and knees in the glass. Tears streamed down his face, so many tears, so hot, stinging his eyes. Pressing his palms to his ears only made the sounds louder. His mouth was open, gasping, nothing but a strangled, gurgling croak coming from his mouth. There’s blood surging between his teeth, blood streaming down his forehead and mingling with the tears, clouding his vision. So much blood.  _Dean. DEAN!_  
  
_"Sam, Sammy, don't... Don’t watch this.”_  
  
_“Close your eyes, Sammy PLEASE.”_  
  
_“SAM. NO! Sammy!"_  
  
Men’s voices, shouts so evil and grim they made goosebumps erupt across Sam’s clammy skin. He heard their names, etched them into the halls of his memory even as he trembled and sobbed in the echo of their vile words.  
  
  
_“Shut that fuckin’ dog up, bro.”_

_“Look at the fuckin’ mouth on this faggot, Marcus. Lips prettier than your baby mama, am I right?”_

  
  
_“You wanna break in this sweet, pink ass first, Houston or should I? Don’t give me that look, this one fuckin’ likes it, you’ll see.”_

_“Yeah, Jonesy, hold the tall one up so he can watch. I’m gonna show his cunt here how a real man fucks.”_

  
  
_“Don’t worry, bitch knows if you feel teeth I’ll unload this entire clip up his fuckin’ ass. Give it to him. Choke him on it.”_

 

_“Damn, Dante, take it easy or you’re gonna kill him before he tells us where the fuckin’ car keys are.”_

  
  
The names sunk into Sam’s heart like ice and burn into his head with a heat so intense it glows white behind his eyelids.  
  
He slid back into consciousness looking out the upstairs window, over the lawn he always imagined his brother playing in as a toddler. It was Sam’s room once, before it was gutted by fire, pollinated with his mother’s ashes. The window was open and a cold, rainy breeze rustled the curtain. The sun was coming up and the sky was turning pale pink.  
  
_CAW! CAW!_  The crow in the oak tree. A rustle of feathers.  
  
“ _Perfer et obdura. Dolor hic tibi proderit olim_ ,” the voice was somehow familiar, low and rumbling through Sam’s mind like the distant memory of thunder. He slid the window closed. The words rippled through him.  _Be patient. Soon all this pain will be useful to you._

 

 

 

  
~~~~~~

  
  
Sam rehung the broken front door. He stripped the blood stained carpet down to the wooden floorboards beneath. They were discolored with age, water damaged, and left splinters in the palms of Sam’s hands and the bare soles of his feet. The little pinpricks of pain made him push harder, made him long for the burn of muscle and tendon.  
  
He installed a bar above the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room, losing count doing pull ups. Doesn’t remember the last time he ate or the last time he was even hungry but his muscles sang for more. He stopped when night fell and shadows filled the space around him, causing dark thoughts to lick at the edge of Sam’s consciousness.  
  
He stood in the doorway to their bedroom, the one that used to be Mom and Dad’s. It was the room they’d made their own, the one they’d taken the most care making comfortable. Warm yellow walls, denim blue accents, a huge bed with soft linens that smelled of lavender and mint. Once upon a time, anyway.  
  
He dug through the duffle still shoved into the back of Dean’s side of the closet, sorting through the fake IDs and credit cards, picking out ones with valid expiration dates so he could keep the power on. He cleaned every one of the guns they kept, polished and sharpens every blade, and lined them up on the kitchen counter before assigning each one a name, a purpose.  
  
He played Dean’s records, finding no solace in the beauty of lyric and melody, letting the haunting, soulful voices of Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey, John Fogerty, and Jim Morrison hollow out his mind and steel his resolve. Time lost meaning, if it had any before, and still the pain was all Sam could see, think, or feel. He shoved the sweet idealistic boy he used to be and the gentle, loving man he became for a time, deep inside a closet in the corner of his mind, locked them up and said goodbye.  
  
Sam no longer had a weak spot, no blinders on. It was as if his eyelids had been cut away and he could finally see the truth of the world, unburdened by anything but the need for revenge. He felt it singing to him, bidding him to act, like it was woven into his DNA and extracted by the torture his flesh and mind had endured. Like a prisoner of war, Sam let the agony make him sharp and dangerous.  
  
He painted his face like the hierophant woman from Dean’s poster, she’d watched the horror that night like Sam had, looking on with her third eye. She gazed down at the scene passively as Dante smashed the butt of his pistol down over the bridge of Sam’s nose, giving him a scar to match her own, it was only fitting that he wore her mask now.

 

 

_This is the end, beautiful friend_

_This is the end, my only friend, the end_

_Of our elaborate plans, the end_

_Of everything that stands, the end_

_No safety or surprise, the end_

_I'll never look into your eyes, again_


	7. Alea iacta est ~ The die is cast

7.

_**Alea iacta est** _

  
_The die is cast_

 

  


  
  
The Bel-Air Motel still had a flickering yellow neon vacancy sign above its dated blue and pink logo of a sunset and a palm tree. The office has been turned into a tobacco shop in recent years and there was a hand painted sign on the door that said:  _APARTMENTS FOR RENT. WEEKLY RATES AVAILABLE. CASH ONLY_.  
  
The swimming pool sat like a concrete island in the rutted gravel and mud parking lot. It had been filled in years ago with gravel and dirt which had sunken down with time, growing thick with a gnarled jungle of ragweed, clover, and scraggly wild sunflowers. The old patio furniture had been left around the makeshift garden to rot, chaise loungers and deck chairs falling in on themselves like the bleached white bones of dead cattle out on the plains.  
  
Sam’s leather coat fluttered in the muggy breeze and the sweet scent of fresh, yellow clover filled his nostrils. His footsteps down the crumbling concrete sidewalk in front of the former motel’s fourteen dilapidated rental units were barely audible over the ever present rush of big rigs down the highway.  
  
The door to unit four opened and Sam paused as an elderly woman with a pronounced hump in her spine dragged a soggy, black garbage bag out onto the landing. There was a beat up Toyota minivan parked with its hatch open backed up to the walkway. Guess it was moving day.  
  
“Let me help you with that, ma’am,” Sam said softly, smiling at the woman in her worn floral dressing gown.  
  
“Well, that’s awfully sweet,” she said, looking up into Sam’s painted face. “My, aren’t you tall?”  
  
Sam chuckled and nodded. “You want this in the van?”  
  
“Yes, that’s very kind of you. Finally have enough saved up to make it to Ohio where my daughter lives but my suitcase broke a few states back and…” Her eyes were soft as they wandered over Sam’s painted face, her words lost to wonder and perhaps a tinge of fear.  
  
Sam lifted the clothes-heavy bag into the back of the van that was piled high with what must have been the remnants of this woman’s former life. He wished his heart still ached for others but it was broken, an angry black wound in his chest only good for dealing out vengeance.  
  
“Perhaps you can help me with something, ma’am. If it’s not too much trouble.” Sam moved to close the van, earning a nod from the frail woman. “I’m looking for a man with long, blonde hair. Goatee. Leather jacket. Travels with a rough crowd. Have you seen someone like that staying here?”  
  
“Yes, I have.” Her eyes didn’t leave Sam’s face.  
  
“Well, ma’am. He took something from me and I need to have a chat with him.”  
  
“That bastard’s in unit ten. I think he’s the one that stole my rent money a few weeks back. Him or one of his crack head friends.”  
  
Sam laughed softly and let his hand fall lightly on her shoulder. “I hope you make it home safely, ma’am. Hold your family close. I’ll make sure that bastard in unit ten doesn’t bother you, or anyone else, anymore.”  
  
She muttered a soft “thank you” and watched Sam as his boots fall heavy on the wet concrete.  _Five, six, seven, eight, nine… ten._  
  
There’s the flicker of a television and the glow of a desk lamp coming from behind unit ten’s nicotine stained hotel curtains. Houston was alone from the sounds coming from within. Sam listened to the man’s repetitive motions. He took a shot of liquor, slammed down the glass, opened a baggie, filled it with powder, took a drag of his cigarette, snorted some of the powder, picked at the scabs on his face, and poured another shot. Lather, rinse, repeat.  
  
Sam was quiet and patient as he waited for his opening, squeezing his lock pick tools so tightly between his fingers they start go numb. Just like the rest of him.  
  
The scrape of Houston’s chair on the threadbare carpet broke his pattern, leaving his post at the table next to the window to go take a piss. The sound and smell of it invaded Sam’s senses as picked the lock and slid his knife up to undo the door chain. He pulled the door closed behind him quietly.  
  
"Bout time you got here, man!" Apparently Houston was expecting someone. "I'm almost done baggin’, there's a little on the nightstand if you wanna bump."  
  
Sam found the nightstand but he was more interested in the gun stashed in the drawer next to the copy of Gideon's than the meth cut into neat little lines on a CD case.  
  
"Hello, Tex. Remember me?"  
  
The piece of shit still had his cock in his hand when he turned, his mouth gaping open in shock.  
  
Sam smashed the butt of Houston's .45 across the bridge of his nose before ejecting the weapon's clip into the toilet, followed by the gun itself. Houston crumbled to his knees with his hands over his face, screeching in pain, blood dripping onto the moldy tile. Sam grabbed him by his greasy blonde ponytail and smashed his face into the wall next to the filthy toilet.  
  
"Flush," Sam commanded calmly. “And put your dick away. We need to talk.”  
  
"Man, my fuckin' face, man..." Houston sobbed as he pulled his bloody, trembling hand away from his ruined nose and reached for the chrome handle. Once the piss and water swirled down the drain Sam pulled him up by the front of his blood and piss stained wife beater, pushing Houston’s hands away from his broken face.  
  
"Oooh, yeah," Sam sucked in a breath, his voice thick with bitter sarcasm. "That’s gonna scar. I guess your modeling days are over.”  
  
Sam wrapped his long arm around Houston's narrow shoulders and turned them to face the mirror over the sink. He tipped their heads together, locking eyes with Houston in the water-stained mirror. Houston’s pock-marked face was dripping with blood that looked blue-black in the shitty, forty watt light. His ratty, dirty blonde hair had mostly fallen out of the rubber band that was holding it back and his goatee was matted with blood and snot. His front tooth was chipped from where his face smashed against the tile and dark circles seem to have swallowed his eyes whole.  
  
“Look, we match," Sam whispered and pointed to the jagged scar running from the bottom of his left eye, over the delicate bridge of his nose in a sweeping curve. The greasepaint on his face highlighted the angry mark and Houston's was a reasonable facsimile even though it was a deep, bloody gash and his nose was clearly broken.  
  
"It was your buddy Jonesy who gave it to me…. You remember that night, Houston? That night you and Dante’s boys decided to take your party to the suburbs?"  
  
Houston’s eyes were swimming with tears, his body's natural response to his injury, but they widened with terror as he realized who his visitor was.  
  
“That’s right, Houston. Let’s take a little walk down memory lane.”  
  
Sam’s huge hand tangled into the back of Houston’s hair again. He dragged him out of the bathroom and shoved him to the floor on the threadbare carpet in front of the table where he had been weighing and bagging crystal meth. A half empty pack of smokes, a full ashtray, and a drained fifth of gin littered Houston’s workstation.  
  
“I see you’ve been busy tonight, now which one of your pals are you expecting? Marcus is  _dead_  so are you waitin’ on Jonesy? Or is the boss man coming to collect? Is Dante coming?”  
  
Sam kicked Houston square in the ribs, causing him to yelp like a wounded animal in a pool of his own blood.  
  
“Fuck you! Take it, man. Take it all,” Houston sobbed, spitting blood as he pointed up at the drugs on the table. “It’s almost half a kee, worth ten K, easy.”  
  
“I think you misunderstand the reason for my visit, Houston. You can’t barter for your life with chemicals. I want you to  _REMEMBER_.”  
  
Sam swung his leg over Houston’s curled up body, pushing the man flat onto his back, Sam’s boot against his bare shoulder. Sam let his weight fall into it, feeling sinew, tendon and bone grind under the thick, muddy treads.  
  
“They were happy, Houston. They were at peace. Then you came… you and your friends. You took everything. Now you’ll do penance.” Sam reached under the long leather coat for the chrome and pearl weapon tucked into the small of his back. He let his fingers caress the scrollwork of vines engraved into the side, imagined Dean’s fingers in the place of his own, his brother’s fluid grace with the weapon. Sam cocked the gun and lifted his foot, smiling down manically before stooping down over Houston, planting his knee into the center of his sternum.  
  
“Graaah!” Houston’s scream turned into a breathless snarl. “Fuck you man, you’re fuckin’ INSANE!” He gasped for air under the weight of Sam’s body, the hard bone of his knee driving the air out of Houston’s lungs. “It’s like – 15 fuckin’ grand, man.” He struggled to get the words out. “I’m tellin’ you – just take it and fuckin’ go.”  
  
Sam jabbed the muzzle of his gun against the soft, bloody underside of Houston’s chin. “It was more than a car, not that you could understand. You remember the car… A 1967 Chevy Impala. You came after us for a fuckin’ CAR, Tex.”  
  
“Holy shit, man. That wasn’t my fuckin’ idea – Dante, I –” Sam turned the gun so the barrel drove into Houston’s windpipe.  
  
“Good, now you’re starting to remember,” Sam lifted his knee and sat back on his haunches, giving Houston the chance to gasp for air and clutch at his bruised esophagus.  
  
“Man, you’re a fuckin’ psycho,” Houston spat, defiance in his eyes. “If you’re gonna shoot me fuckin’ SHOOT. Sure, I remember the fuckin’ car, that pair of fags that drove it. SO FUCKING WHAT?”  
  
“So this,” Sam said as he rose to his feet.  
  
 _ **BOOM!**_  
  
Houston’s ear exploded as the bullet tore through skin and cartilage, splatter painting the carpet beneath in a brilliant swath of gore.  
  
“Their names were Dean and Sam. And they deserved better than you,” Sam spat over Houston’s cries of agony. “Now, I need your help finding a friend of yours. Where’s Jonesy?”  
  
Houston sobbed and curled his arm around the ruined side of his face.  
  
“Here, let me help. I know where Dante is and your buddy Marcus is already taking up fridge space at the county morgue. Give me Jonesy or I’ll make your other ear match.” Sam tapped the gun against the unbloodied side of Houston’s face.  
  
“Shit, man. I don’t know!” Houston begged through snot and tears.  
  
Sam pressed his boot into the meat of the man’s bicep, exposing his wounded ear. He crouched down over Houston, watching as tears flowed from the man’s eye into the bloody wound, waiting patiently for what he asked for. Nothing but a litany of desperate whimpers escaped Houston’s chapped lips.  
  
Sam flicked at the ragged cartilage with his fingers. “I’m running out of patience,” he seethed as Houston screamed and cried.  
  
“Please,” he choked, eyes swimming with pain, trying to meet Sam’s. “I –  _fuck_  – just, yeah, okay.”  
  
Sam sat back on his heels, the muzzle of Dean’s gun tucked up nicely under Houston’s ribs as incentive for him to keep talking.  
  
“Jonesy’s shacked up with some stripper from the club, some shithole squatter house over on Prospect. He don’t want Dante to know. He got her knocked up or some shit, both hooked on smack. Dante’ll fuckin’ kill him...” Houston cringed as the words trailed off, fear and pain flittered across his face.  
  
“Good, Houston. Good,” Sam cooed softly, patting the man on his heaving chest. “Now, listen to me. You and your buddies are a fucking cancer on this city,” Sam growled as he shoved the gun up under Houston’s chin. “No one will be sorry you’re gone…” Sam’s voice faded to a whisper as he stood up. He could hear sirens in the distance.  
  
“This was my brother’s gun,” Sam said softly as he trailed the fingers of his free hand over the pearl handled colt in his grip. “If he had it on him that night. If it wasn’t tucked safely in his sock drawer…” Sam’s words caught in his throat and he closed his eyes. All he could see was red, all he could hear was static. He gritted his jaw and swallowed hard, forcing himself to look down at Houston one last time. “It would have been him doing this to you, not me. You’ve been living on borrowed time. Goodbye, Tex.”  
  
 _ **BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!**_  
  
Sam unloaded three bullets into Houston’s groin. One for Dean. One for himself. One for Angus. Angus… Oh God.  
  
  


_Can you picture what will be, so limitless and free_

_Desperately in need, of some, stranger's hand_

_In a, desperate land_

_Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain_

_And all the children are insane, all the children are insane_

_Waiting for the summer rain, yeah_

  
  


~~~~~~

  
  
“Happy birthday, Sammy.”  
  
The box was huge and it was – uh – moving. Little wiggles making it scootch across the kitchen floor, whatever is inside was definitely alive.  
  
“Dean, what are you doing?”  
  
“Open it,” Dean smiled, big and wide, crinkles at the side of his eyes that were as bright as a kid’s on Christmas morning. “Come on.” It was early, before Sam’s morning run, Dean was usually still asleep. But here he was, dressed like he was going to join Sam on his run, beaming at him over a wiggling, brightly wrapped, package.  
  
Sam eyed his brother suspiciously and stepped toward the three foot tall box, wrapped neatly with blue and white striped wrapping paper, topped with a big, shiny red bow. The thing inside the box whimpered as Sam gently slid his finger under the seam of paper on the top of the box.  
  
The puppy was white and scrawny, with big, floppy pointed ears and a beige spot over his left eye. His eyes were huge and grey and his nose was wet and freckled with big pink and grey spots. He was wearing a thick black leather collar around his skinny neck that was decorated with silver studs, a red star hanging from it, engraved with the name ‘ANGUS’ in big, bold letters.  
  
Angus wiggled and yelped with excitement and joy as Sam lifted him out of his cardboard prison. He launched up into Sam’s face, nipping and licking him all over with pure, unadulterated joy. Sam grinned at the skunky smell of puppy breath as he held the dog to his chest.  
  
“I hope you don’t mind that I named him. I figured if I was going to change my ‘no dogs in the car’ rule he should at least have a kick-ass name.”  
  
“He’s amazing, Dean. I – ” Sam’s voice got caught in his throat and he felt tears well up hot behind his eyes. He blinked them back and nuzzled his face against Angus’ fuzzy side.  
  
Dean never liked dogs, or at least he did a really good job pretending not to, and bringing a dog into their home was something Sam hadn’t even considered yet. Sam crossed the space separating them and pulled Dean into a hug, sandwiching Angus between them. The puppy couldn’t have been happier and licked Dean’s cheek with enthusiasm as he pulled a face and tried to escape.  
  
“Don’t go all mushy on me, Sammy. It’s just a dog, it’s not like I asked you to marry me or something.” Dean’s smile was soft and sincere despite his snark. “Let’s take the newest Winchester on a walk before I have to clean up another puddle.” He kissed Sam sweetly and took the dog out of his arms.


	8. Non nobis solum nati sumus ~ We are not born for ourselves alone

  
8.

_**Non nobis solum nati sumus** _

  
_We are not born for ourselves alone_

 

  


  
Dakota was a rumpled, sticky mess of a woman, even by The Gallery’s standards. The roundness of her cheeks and platinum blonde pigtails gave her that ‘barely legal’ look in the strip club’s low light but there were lifetimes of pain and numbness etched into her makeup caked face. Of course, most of the clientele was too distracted by her soft, pale c-cup tits and candy pink nipples to notice the dead look in her eyes or the angry track marks streaking her inner arms.  
  
Sam could see the swelling bump under her frilly nighty as she shook her vinyl-clad crotch in his face, working hard for the wrinkled five he eventually slipped her out of pity. The day shift didn’t tip as well and it wouldn’t be much longer before she lost her job over that bastard baby. It was the least he could do. It wouldn’t be long before the boss man finally believed the rumors about her and his boy Jonesy. Her junkie fuck of a boyfriend seemed to be doing a good job of lying low and considering the amount of smack it looked like Dakota was pumping into her veins, the baby was more likely to be miscarried than born.  
  
Sam watched her leave the club when her shift ended at seven, snuggled up in her raggedy, leopard print frock coat. He followed at a safe distance as she walked the mile to her bus stop in her stacked platform heels and thigh-high patent leather trimmed fishnets. She looked as if she was teetering on the edge of falling, even when she was just stocking up on Fruity Pebbles, Red Vines and sour straws at the Kum-and-Go. Nothing but the best for the tiny bean growing in her belly.  
  
Sam kept his distance, observing with a chilled numbness as he let her take him to Jonesy, a nearly hour long bus ride through Kansas City’s worst neighborhoods. Whether it was by accident or design it appeared to have help her steer clear of anyone catching on to the fact that Jonesy was staying with her. Well, anyone but Sam.  
  
The dilapidated house the lovebirds squatted in sat moldering in a sea of overgrown ragweed at the corner of Raymond and Chandler. Tucked up next to a noisy highway overpass, the two-story, avocado green ruin didn’t stand out much from the other abandoned, tagged, and boarded up hovels surrounding it.  
  
Sam waited and watched from the concrete shadow of I-70, listening to the cicadas and crickets jockey for dominance over the constant thrum of traffic. It was nearly midnight when he finally jimmied open the back door, looking for a path up to the room where a bare bulb projected Dakota and Jonesy’s shadows onto the faded confederate flag that was been pinned up over the broken window.  
  
The kitchen reeked of cat piss and iodine and Sam could make out the outline of huge, teetering stacks of moldy newspaper and magazines piled in every corner of the room. The damp, aging floorboards creaked under his feet as he climbed the stairs but the sound appeared to be masked by gunfire and yelling blaring from an ancient television set that was cranked up somewhere upstairs. Sam could hear Tony Montana’s voice clearly through the flimsy door at the top of the stairs. It sounded like Jonesy and his lady were tucked in for the night, jaded and high, watching the only flick full of more drugs and violence than their actual lives.  
  
“ _You're all assholes. You know why? 'Cause none of you got the guts to be what you want to be._ ”  
  
Sam smiled at Pacino’s over the top Cuban accent and reached for the gun tucked into his waistband, letting his fingers fall softly on the rusty doorknob.  
  
“ _You need people like me so you can point your fingers and say 'hey there's the bad guy!' So what does that make you? Good guys? Don't kid yourselves. You're no better'n me. You just know how to hide – and how to lie. Me I don't have that problem. I always tell the truth – even when I lie._ ”  
  
Sam twisted the knob and pushed the door open, grinning at Jonesy in the flickering white light from the TV. The junkie’s bloodshot eyes jolted wide with fear as they flickered over Sam in disbelief. His wiry frame stayed frozen in place propped up against sweat-stained pillows, his short dark hair sticking up in greasy, awkward spikes. Dakota was dozing against him, tucked up under his armpit, lips parted and drooling on his bare chest. Tony’s rant continued, punctuating Sam’s presence, and making Dakota’s eyelids flutter as she fought the drugs to look up at him with the same sad, empty eyes she batted at him back at the club.  
  
“ _So say good night to the bad guy... You're never gonna see a bad guy like me again._ ”  
  
Sam shook his head ruefully and took a few steps into the room. He flipped the knob on the small, black and white TV, silencing Scarface and dropping the three of them into the harsh, haunting glow of the twinkling red Christmas lights that were draped around the headboard.  
  
“Who the hell do you think you are, man?” Jonesy slurred. “Get the fuck outta my house!” He tried to sound hard but his words ran together and his voice trembled from the cocktail of heroin and panic thick in his veins. He was still prone on the bed, hands tangled loosely in the sheets bunched up at his waist. Dakota whimpered and clung to his scrawny, pale torso. She looked terrified and confused, eyeliner smudged around her eyes like enormous bruises.  
  
“It’s hard to sound tough when you’re sitting in a puddle of your own piss, isn’t it Jonesy?” Sam spat, wrinkling his nose at the funk of BO and piss filling the room.  
  
“Hey, if Dante sent you, man, you tell him I’m done with his shit! D and I are gonna hitch out east to live with her folks. Any day now, man. We don’t want no trouble, she’s havin’ my kid.”  
  
“Oh, Jonesy. You legitimately sound concerned. How long did it take you to perfect that act? Do you practice it every time she shoots that thick, iodine scented swirl of brown death into her veins? Do you kiss her swollen belly before she leaves to shake her ass for strangers?”  
  
Dakota’s eyes were wet with tears as Jonesy’s hardened. His right hand slid slowly under the sheets, reaching toward the nightstand.  
  
“He’s scarin’ me, J,” Dakota whimpered as Jonesy got bolder, heading in earnest for the drawer.  
  
“I’ll kill you both before you even touch that gun, Jonesy,” Sam said softly, stepping to the foot of the bed and cocking the weapon in his own hand.  
  
Jonesy’s trembling fingers retreated from their attempt and settled back on top of the sheet. He couldn’t help but give his thigh a small scratch. “Man, you best turn around and leave the way you come in before somethin’ real bad happens. I don’t even know you, man, so whatever it is, I promise it ain’t worth it.”  
  
Sam chuckled softly. “You know me, Jonesy. I know it’s hard. That brain of yours must feel like a sack of hot marshmallow right now, I bet. But I need you to think, I need you to _remember_.”  
  
Sam pointed his gun at Jonesy and held out his left hand, extending it toward Dakota.  
  
“Come here, girl,” Sam instructed as he stared Jonesy down, willing him to remember his face, remember that night. “I need you to get dressed, leave this place before this piece of shit sucks all the life out of your eyes. Before you’re made to sacrifice both your lives for his.”  
  
Dakota’s clammy, shaking hand sank into Sam’s and he pulled her toward him, holding her against his chest as she stumbled trying to get off the bed. She sobbed and sank to her knees, too fucked up, too terrified to even save her own life. Or her baby’s.  
  
“Please, mister, please… I’m scared…” She clawed at his leg, gripping it like a toddler begging their mother for candy.  
  
“Something is seriously wrong with you, dude,” Jonesy growled, swinging his feet onto the floor. “What the fuck you want with us, man?!”  
  
“I want penance. I want information. Then… I want your life.” Sam nodded toward the card table that sat caddy corner to the bed. It was littered with torn open balloons of heroin, lighters, syringes, and blackened spoons. “Do what’s left, Jonesy. Maybe it’ll help you remember.”  
  
“Fuck you, man. I’m already on a serious nod and there’s enough smack there to kill a racehorse.”  
  
“That’s the idea,” Sam nodded as he looked down at Dakota, an apology in his eyes. He slipped his hand around one of her ratty bleach-blonde pigtails and tipped her head away from his thigh. He turned the gun on her, pressing the muzzle to her temple, eyes burning into Jonesy’s.  
  
“Cook it up, Jonesy. Put it in your fuckin’ arm and stop killing this poor girl and your bastard baby. Do one decent fucking thing in your life, you junkie fuck.”  
  
Dakota was silent, tears streaming down her face, resigned to her fate, maybe even welcoming it. Sam expected a protest from Jonesy, another sluggish, sad attempt to reach for the weapon stashed in the nightstand but Jonesy just stood, his grey boxer shorts hanging loose and stained off his bony frame. He scratched at his happy trail, eyelids drooping heavy as he slid into the folding chair to begin preparing his last shot of smack.  
  
Sam watched on like a sentry as Jonesy worked, letting go of Dakota’s hair and folding his arms across his chest. Jonesy finally spoke as he flicked the lighter and let the water and lump of brown bubble away in his bent up spoon.  
  
“Yeah, man. I uh – you’re him, right?” Jonesy looked back over his shoulder at Sam. His eyes huge, ringed in dark, papery skin like some kind of feral raccoon. “You’re the crazy ghost that wasted Marcus and Houston.”  
  
Sam nodded, running his tongue over the flaking black greasepaint on his lips. “That’s it, Jonesy. That’s not all… Keep going. Further back. Remember what you did…”  
  
“Man, I – I fuckin’ saw you die, man,” Jonesy practically whispered, setting down the spoon and raising the needle in his shaking hand. “Dante shot you man… the gun was so close to your head your fuckin’ hair caught on fire,” Jonesy gulped, tearing his eyes away from Sam’s face as he drew the brown liquid into the syringe. “Don’t make me do this man, please…” Jonesy’s eyes were filled with tears as he looked back up at Sam. “It was Dante, I didn’t want to do that shit, man. Dante he’s –”  
  
“What’s done is done, Jonesy. Are the bones of your sins sharp enough to cut through your own excuses?”  
  
Jonesy tied off his arm with a piece of filthy rubber medical tubing, flexing his fist on auto pilot, an action he’d done a hundred times. Any one of those times could have killed him, could have been the shot of dope that stopped his heart, ended his life. And yet, here he was, destroyer of lives, still breathing air while Dean Winchester lie rotting under six feet of dark, wet earth.  
  
“Don’t make me ask you again, Jonesy. You died that night too, you just didn’t know it. Time for the past to synch up with the present.” Sam nudged Dakota with his boot as Jonesy hunted for a vein. “Say goodbye pretty girl. Look at him. Remember this if you ever think of sinking another needle into your arm.”  
  
The needle slipped into Jonesy’s arm with practiced ease, his hand was sturdy for this somehow and a blossom of dark red caught Sam’s eye before Jonesy pushed down on the plunger, driving the contents of the needle into his bloodstream. The man’s eyes practically rolled back in his head and Dakota sobbed and looked away, still clutching at Sam’s knee helplessly.  
  
“Jonesy, I know it’s getting hard to focus but I need one more thing. You took something from him, from the man you raped and cut up and left to die on the floor of his suburban home. You took a necklace from him, an amulet from around his neck. Snatched it up like a trophy and I want it back.”  
  
Jonesy’s eyes swam as they tried to make contact with Sam’s. He shook his head and it wobbled his whole body where it slumped in the chair like he was ready to slide into a pile of loose skin and hollow bone to the floor.  
  
“Jonesy, tell me where it is or I’ll cut your balls off and make your girlfriend here eat them,” Sam barked impatiently.  
  
“Fuck, man, no it wasn’t like that,  _Christ_!” Jonesy’s head lolled back and forth on his neck like a broken bobble head doll. He struggled to keep his eyes open as he talked. “Fuckin’ not a trophy, man… …jusss needed the money.” His words slurred like his tongue was swollen two sizes too big. “Sold it for smack…” A chuckle rattled in Jonesy’s chest, a thick, wet sound like his lungs were filling with fluid. “Saul’s pawnshop…downtown…long fuckin’ time ago.”  
  
“You’re dead, man. Fuckin’ dead. I don’t understand it. I saw it… saw you… dead… man…”  
  
“We’re all dead men, Jonesy. All of us here caught in this web of pain. Now go to sleep. Thank the good lord I let you go easy, for the sake of these two.”  
  
Sam pulled Dakota to her feet and sat her down on the end of the bed. He cupped her face in his hands and tipped their foreheads together. He heard Jonesy suck in his final wet breaths as he wiped the tears off her soft, round cheeks.  
  
“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.”  
  
Sam rested his hand on her belly for a moment before pulling away. It was soft and round under his palm, warm through the thin slip she wore.  
  
“Go to your folks. Make a life for this child. If you don’t the guilt will eat you from the inside like a cancer. Go and never, ever come back here. Do you understand?”  
  
“Y-yes,” she whispered, watching Sam as he gathered her coat and her bag and sat them on the bed next to her. He watched silently as she walked on shaky legs to the closet and pulled on a daisy print baby doll dress and a tattered pair of purple Doc Martens.  
  
She looked at Sam with tear filled eyes one more time before leaving the room. “Thank you,” she whispered  
  


_There's danger on the edge of town_

_Ride the King's highway, baby_

_Weird scenes inside the gold mine_

_Ride the highway west, baby_

_Ride the snake, ride the snake_

_To the lake, the ancient lake, baby_

_The snake is long, seven miles_


	9. Quid me nutrit me destruit ~ What nourishes me also destroys me

9.

_**Quid me nutrit me destruit** _

  
_What nourishes me also destroys me_

 

  


  
It was just past dawn and Oak Hill Cemetery was blanketed with a layer of spring snow. The cemetery was a huge, sprawling and beautiful monument to the dead. A mix of old, crumbling tombs and new, precision cut headstones tucked in weaving rows amongst topiaries and trees on a carpet of neatly manicured grass. Oak Hill’s embrace had a calming effect on the sirens constantly roaring in Sam’s mind, wrapping him in a scrap of quiet peace as he snaked his way across the quiet grounds to the place where Dean’s name was carved in stone.  
  
An ancient oak tree’s boughs reached their gnarled fingers out over the row of graves, creating a dappled lace of shadows in the pale morning light. Dean’s was the second from the end and it was a long, solemn march over the crunch of ice and snow. Sam let his hand trace over the arch of jagged gray granite as he straddled the spot where his brother was buried, where everything that mattered in Sam’s life was sunk silent and cold beneath six feet of frozen earth.  
  
Sam pressed his fingertips deep into the crevices of the headstone, tracing their family name.  
  
  


**_W – I – N – C – H – E – S – T – E – R_ **

  
  
He sank to his knees in the ice crusted snow drift, tipping forward to press his cheek against the cross carved below his brother’s name. He’d been here before, countless times. Hadn’t he? Sam tried to calm his breath, his mind, reaching for memories that seemed just out of reach, hazy through the fog of torment. The funeral, the days and weeks since Dean died felt like an endless hallway of locked doors, knobs that wouldn’t budge no matter how Sam tried to wrench them open. Had he tried to find a way to bring Dean back? Had he failed?  
  
Painful sounds rattled out from deep within Sam’s chest as he crumpled in front of the tombstone, folding in on himself in the snow. It ate at him, the questions, aching and growing, melting in his trembling hands like the snow beneath his bruised knees. It was all an echoing pulse of pain, no logic or reason just angry red and throbbing, aching black behind his eyes. The tapestry of Sam’s mind felt riddled with gashes, rips, and burnt out holes. He couldn’t put together the details, no matter how much he clawed at the memories, no matter how much it hurt.  _Dean_.  
  
He pulled Dean’s knife from the inside of his coat and forced himself to look up again at the name, the dates, the utter permanence of the tiny monument to his brother’s life. It seemed utterly inadequate in capturing who Dean was, the difference he had made. It wasn’t too late, it couldn’t be. Sam sunk the knife into the rocky earth, gripping the handle in both hands, stabbing it in again and again, raking the rubble away with frigid fingers between thrusts of the blade.  _Dean_.  
  
Sam heaved into the dirt, his empty stomach lurching as his back bowed violently and his tears splashed into the mud, his hands clawing at the earth as his own sobs echoed in his ears. Stab. Stab. Stab… He couldn’t clear the dirt fast enough, rocks ripping at his palms, fingertips bleeding as he cried. They were the sounds of a dying animal, the guttural howl of soul-deep pain, hollowing Sam out over and over, an unending choir of agony.  
  
The hot sting of tears splashed against the back of his hands and in an instant the cold, rocky earth turned hot and wet beneath Sam’s fingers. The rich, metallic smell of the mud faded, replaced by the noxious stench of rotting flesh invading Sam’s nostrils, coating his tongue. Panic clutched his insides as Sam felt rotting fabric sliding through his fingers and waxy, dead skin sloughing beneath it. Decaying muscle and tendon pulling away from bone. Sam was choking on blood and fluid and rot, dirt and insects writhed in his ears and nostrils. A vivid, living nightmare.  
  
The pastel light crumbled into darkness around him, Dean’s grave swallowing him up, and for a terrifying moment Sam begged some nameless, faceless god to let him drown on soil and vermin if it meant no longer having the taste of rot and death on his tongue. Wind and thunder screamed in his ears as he succumbed to the throes of agony. His bloody, filthy palms pressed into the hollows of his eyes, fingernails ripping at the skin of his temples, trying to make it stop and failing.  
  
“ _Dean_.”  
  
The word burned his throat as Sam’s body convulsed against the cold hard, ground. A sensation like jerking awake from half-sleep, a punch in the gut that told Sam which way was up and which way was down.  
  
“Wake up, Sammy…”  
  
The words tickled at the edge of Sam’s consciousness but it felt like there were sandbags over his eyes, huge, heavy sacks of earth pinning his limbs to the bed… The bed. It was soft and clean beneath Sam’s aching bones. Warm, brushed cotton pressed into Sam’s cheek and he breathed deep, gasping like a drowning man. The smell of Sam and Dean’s mingled sweat pushed away the stench of death. Fabric softener and fresh air, a whisper of home. Sheets dried out on the line in the sunny backyard.  
  
“Mmmmph…” Sam groaned, the sound muffled by the down pillow beneath his face.  
  
“Come on, get up or you’re gonna be late…”  
  
Dean. Next to him in their bed. Dean, warm, steady, and alive. But Sam was still at the bottom of a pit, looking up into blinding light it seemed he could never reach.  
  
“You dreamin’ or somethin’, babe?” Dean’s voice was rough, his words slurred with sleep. It was sweet and soothing to the agony still rippling in waves through Sam’s mind. Movement then and suddenly Dean’s chest was pressed along the curve of Sam’s back, his stubbled chin dragging between Sam’s shoulder blades.  
  
“You’re burnin’ up.” The gentle press of Dean’s lips to the back of Sam’s neck, his hand brushing Sam’s hair from his forehead, and suddenly Sam was there, really there, next to his brother in their warm, comfortable bed. Dean’s arms slid around Sam, one snaking up under his neck and the other around his waist. Dean rocked against him and Sam felt the familiar press of his brother’s morning wood against his thigh.  
  
“Skip your run today,” Dean mumbled. A gentle demand instead of a question, his breath still sour with sleep as he pressed their mouths together. Sam sighed softly, unable to do anything but let himself be kissed, lips softening and parting under Dean’s, inviting the gentle laps of his lover’s tongue as he finally willed his eyelids to open.  
  
The room was bathed in the soft, violet glow of pre-dawn light. Dean’s hair was a rumpled, sticking-up mess as he pulled back for a moment to gaze down at Sam. He basked in the beautiful angles of Dean’s face, the smattering of freckles across his cheeks and nose, the fan of lashes over those big, soulful eyes. Sam swallowed hard, biting back the black, malignant pain swelling within him. The darkness inside Sam was hungry for Dean’s love, like a demon in his chest trying to claw its way out through his ribcage.  
  
“Talk to me, Sammy.” Dean’s forehead was creased with concern as he cupped Sam’s face in his warm, calloused hands. He kissed Sam softly again, their lips sticking together pleasantly as he pulled away, eyes locking with Sam’s, searching. “You okay?”  
  
Sam nodded, swallowing hard before he managed to squeak out a shaky reply. “Yeah, just – uh, a bad dream… I guess.” Sam fought the urge to close his eyes and let the shadows take him again, clinging to Dean with everything he had. His skin felt clammy, caked with mud, like he was still in the cemetery, still shaking and folded in on himself in the snow.  
  
“Seems like you’re comin’ down with somethin’. Maybe you shouldn’t go in today, babe,” Dean’s voice soothed. Sam let his shaky hands run over Dean’s warm skin, squeezing his arms where they bracketed Sam in a protective embrace, anchoring him there in the memory. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, willing himself to be present. Telling the thunder in his head to let him have this, just one more moment with Dean.  
  
Then Dean started pulling away. “Stay in bed, Sammy. I’m gonna go downstairs and let Angus out. I’ll get you some coffee and toast, okay?”  
  
No, no. That wasn’t right. Sam remembered this day. Details of his memory slid into sudden, vivid focus.  
  
“No, wait,” Sam begged, reaching for Dean more franticly than he intended.  
  
Sam had skipped his run that morning and Dean rode his cock like some beautiful, wanton sex god for the better part of an hour, drawing it out, not letting Sam come until the sun lit the sky on fire and bathed Dean’s skin in gold and orange. It was gorgeous, torturous, and perfect and Sam really was almost late to work. He daydreamed about Dean all damned day, marveling at how he could still be so utterly infatuated with the person he’d been in love with since he was a stupid, skinny kid.  
  
“Please, Dean… Just –” Sam’s hand wrapped around Dean’s wrist and it didn’t evaporate, didn’t turn to mud or mist between his fingers. Desperation burned his aching throat as he pulled Dean back onto the bed. “I can make it in time, just please come back –”  
  
Dean’s hand carded through Sam’s hair as he sank back down onto the bed, surrounding Sam in his touch, his smell, his heat.  
  
“You’re gonna get your ass fired before you ever get that tenure you won’t shut up about,” Dean scolded even as he pulled Sam against him, rocking their hips together with a soft little pant.  
  
“They can fire my ass for whatever they want, whenever they want, anyway,” Sam said. The words rolled off his tongue, defying his fragile mental state. He licked into Dean’s mouth, sucking at his bottom lip for a moment as he slid his hands down Dean’s back and over the firm swell of his ass. “Can you imagine the mob they’d send over here if they ever found out…?” He pulled Dean’s thigh over his hip, rolling from his side to his back so Dean was straddling his pelvis.  
  
Dean groaned softly, dipping down over Sam to press a soft kiss to his sweat-damp forehead. “Villagers with pitchforks and torches,” he chuckled as Sam’s fingers slipped between Dean’s ass cheeks, teasing at his hole. It was still damp and loose from the night before, clenching sweetly at Sam’s seeking fingertips. Dean rocked his hips against Sam’s thickening erection and licked his lips before pressing them against Sam’s again.  
  
“We’re outta lube, loverboy,” Dean reminded Sam, licking into his mouth. “Gonna need that pretty mouth on me if you’re gonna do that.”  
  
Sam pressed his fingertips against Dean’s hole, groaning softly in agreement as he shifted his weight and flipped Dean over onto his back. He kissed Dean deeply, the fingers of his right hand still massaging at his soft, sweet hole as he licked out the inside of his mouth. The urgency and need behind Sam’s touch made Dean gasp into Sam’s mouth, arching into his touch and leaking hard and wet against Sam’s stomach. He kissed across the hard line of Dean’s stubbled jaw and over his Adam’s apple, the salty tang of Dean’s sweat like heaven to Sam’s taste buds. He licked and pressed soft, wet kisses to each of Dean’s stiff little pink nipples, wrapping his hand around Dean’s shaft to pump some slick from the tip, eagerly devouring it as he sucked the tip of Dean’s dick between his needy lips.  
  
“Christ, Sammy,” Dean groaned as he bucked up into Sam’s mouth, bewilderment clear in his voice but not a shred of protest. Sam pulled off Dean’s cock to slurp two fingers into his mouth, wetting them generously before pressing them back between Dean’s ass cheeks. He licked up the vein on the underside of Dean’s meaty prick as he teased his way inside, Dean’s hole yielding easily to Sam’s damp fingers. There wasn’t nearly enough slick to press in deep and thrust but Sam’s target was shallow and he knew just how to stroke it to empty Dean’s balls all over his own belly. He curved his fingers upward, pressing and stroking up until Dean’s hole clenched around him and he gasped breathlessly above.  
  
“There it is,” Sam whispered into Dean’s inner thigh before licking and sucking at his ball sack. He needed Dean to come, needed to taste his bitter, earthy essence on his tongue. Needed it like he needed air. “Don’t resist it, Dean. Let me make you come,” Sam said before snaking his tongue around his gently thrusting fingers. “Need to fuckin’ taste you, baby. Need somethin’ to slick up my dick so I can fuck you, yeah?”  
  
Dean groaned and writhed, his back arching as he fucked himself down on Sam’s fingers, following Sam’s lead and helping his cause.  
  
“More, fuck. Harder, Sam,” Dean begged, spreading his legs wider and grinding down on Sam’s fingers. Sam spit on Dean’s hole and pulled his fingers out until he could wedge the third in beside the others. It was a tight fit and not nearly wet enough but Dean reacted eagerly, grinding his hips down to try and get Sam’s fingers back up against his prostate. “Suck me, Sammy. Fuck, I’m close. Just –”  
  
Sam cut Dean off by running his tongue up over Dean’s slit. He flicked his tongue in Dean’s salty slick before sucking the head of his cock between his lips. The angle was wrong to suck Dean as deep as Sam wanted to but he worked the underside of his shaft with his tongue and bobbed shallowly as he worked his fingers against Dean’s prostate. Undulating, evenly paced little strokes, increasing with pressure as he sucked, coaxing Dean closer and closer to orgasm. Dean’s hands were in Sam’s hair, his nails scraping over his scalp and the nape of his neck as Dean’s hips thrust, rutting his cock against the back of Sam’s throat.  
  
“Shit, Sammy,” Dean practically growled, tossing his head against the pillow. “That’s it, fuck. Fuck, I’m – fuck…!” Sam pressed his fingers deeper, working mercilessly against Dean’s sweet spot and Dean bucked up hard, jabbing the spongy head of his dick against the roof of Sam’s mouth as he came. His thighs tensed and his ass clenched like a vice around Sam’s fingers as his balls unloaded, spurt after spurt into Sam’s eager mouth. Sam groaned, Dean’s hot come like fucking ambrosia to his starved senses, washing over his taste buds. He resisted the urge to swallow it all down, taking care to pull back enough to suckle at the head of Dean’s prick as it gave up the last of his load. Sam kept his fingers pressing gently over Dean’s still throbbing prostate, rubbing gentle circles into it to milk him completely, a greedy exercise serving only to assimilate as much of Dean into himself as was humanly possible. As Dean’s feeble groans turned to soft, almost pained whimpers Sam backed off, letting Dean’s cock slip out of his mouth to slap wetly against his trembling abdomen. He slipped his fingers out of Dean’s asshole and pressed his palms to the back of Dean’s thighs, coaxing them back and apart so Sam could get his mouth on his hole.  
  
“Here,” Dean said weakly as he pushed one of their down pillows up under his ass, tipping it up for easier access. Sam rolled what was left of Dean’s load over his tongue, eyes flickering shut for a moment as he relished the taste. Dean held his knees and Sam’s hands slid over Dean’s ass cheeks, tugging them apart, and letting his thumbs sweep sweetly over Dean’s slightly puffy pink rim. Sam kissed at it sweetly, opening his mouth a measure like he was kissing Dean’s lips. He licked inside, pushing some of Dean’s own come up inside him, fucking it into him with his tongue.  
  
“Fuck, Sam,” Dean gasped, “I don’t know what you were dreaming about earlier but  _Jesus Christ_  if it gets me this…” Dean trailed off as Sam continued licking at his insides, pushing the come around and pulling Dean open more and more with his thumbs.  
  
The room had turned to golden-orange when Sam finally pulled his mouth off Dean’s hole and got to his knees with his leaking dick in his hand. He spit into his hand and wet the head and shaft, spreading his own slick, spit, and what was left of Dean’s come over his hot, sensitive flesh. He pressed the tip against Dean’s hole and watched as he fed him dick inside all that tight, slick, heat. It was so good it almost hurt, it made Sam’s heart lurch in his chest, made his vision go all blurry at the edges. Sam focused on letting every nerve ending experience the moment. His eyes devouring the sight of Dean stretched out on white cotton, writhing on his cock. Every taste bud clinging to the remnants of Dean on his tongue, hungry to assimilate every piece of Dean he could have.  
Dean’s hands clawed at his sides, grabbing his ass, eager for Sam to thrust, to fuck into him like he had so many times before. Dean’s own urgency turned up to match Sam’s in the pre-dawn light.  
  
“Fuck me, Sammy,” Dean breathed, rocking his propped up hips as best he could to meet Sam’s thrusts. Sam held on tight, fingers digging into Dean’s hips as he fucked in deep, as deep as he could get. His big palm pressing into Dean’s abdomen, trying to feel himself there below muscle and tissue, fucking up into Dean’s guts, like he was trying to force his entire body inside his brother’s.  
  
The tears came before Sam did. His head was tilted back and his tear ducts unloaded gentle rivulets of hot, salty tears over Sam’s temples, the curve of his earlobes, and down his neck. “I love you,” he whispered to the ceiling that was still blossoming in hues of salmon and gold, “I love you more than life.”  
  
Pleasure coiled up at the base of Sam’s spine as the tears turned to rain on his face. Icy-cold droplets, little bullets of rainwater stinging against his cheeks and forehead. His body was still moving inside Dean, his balls seizing up to empty inside his brother for the last time. The last time they were together like this. The last time the abomination of their love took a physical form. He looked down at Dean for the last time, too. His mouth hung open in pleasure, sweat beading on his forehead, and his eyes squeezed shut. He was moaning, gasping in pleasure but Sam could only hear sirens and screams.  
  
Sam shut his eyes and he came, hot and deep inside of Dean, deafened by a gunshot and the feeling of blood running down the side of his ruined face.


	10. Amore nihil mollius, nihil violentius ~ Nothing is more tender, nothing is more violent than love

 

10.

_**Amore nihil mollius, nihil violentius** _

 

  
_Nothing is more tender, nothing is more violent than love_

 

  
Saul’s Jewelry and Loan was in East Kansas City inside the husk of a building that had been a large, multi-floor department store decades before. Now, Saul’s ground floor pawn shop was the only business operating. No other lights were on in any of the broken, boarded up windows in the once-beautiful brick façade. It was past ten and the neighborhood was practically deserted but Saul’s lights were still on even though the neon ‘OPEN’ sign was off. A quick tug of the handle proved the door was locked.  
  
Sam ran his fingertips over the ring of gold in his pocket that was slowly wearing a mark into the snug black denim of his jeans. He balled his hand into a fist, fingers twitching and flexing before he rapped his knuckles against the glass. He rolled his head back on his shoulders, breathed deep, and waited for Saul to respond. He could practically smell the filthy pawn broker, hunched over the cash register with a cheap cigar burning between his greasy fingers.  
  
“We’re closed, asshole!” Saul shouted.  
  
Sam grinned, liking the feel of grease paint gathering in his dimples as he knocked again, harder this time, rattling the bells hanging inside the door.  
  
“Are you deaf, motherfucker? I said we’re fuckin’ closed!”  
  
Sam lifted the shotgun from under his leather coat and flipped it in his hands, angling the butt of the gun at the glass in the center of the door where it would be weakest. “I believe you have something of mine, Saul,” Sam said against the glass, just loud enough for the man to hear.  
  
Sam didn’t give Saul more than a second to reconsider before smashing the glass with the butt of his shotgun. The glass shattered almost too easily, sending crystalline shards flying through the air, tinkling against the jewelry cases on the far side of the shop. The sound was like wind chimes in Sam’s ears before his boots crunched in the fragments still settling on the floor as he stepped through the gaping hole he had just created.  
  
“Motherfucker!” Saul’s face was puffy-red and sweaty, barking at Sam from behind the shop counter. “You're trespassing! Breakin' and fuckin’ enterin'! And you just bought me a new fuckin’ door!”  
  
Sam smiled wide as the man’s fat, calloused hand scrambled under the countertop, presumably for a weapon.  
  
“I said I believe you have something that belongs to me,” Sam snarled as he closed the gap between them and slammed the shotgun down on the counter in front of the shop owner. Saul’s ashtray toppled over as Sam slid the gun across the grimy wood until it bumped Saul’s against cirrhosis swollen gut. “I’m looking for an amulet, a necklace.”  
  
Saul steadied himself on the counter, looking down at the shotgun and back up at Sam’s painted face. The sausage-like fingers of his right hand fidgeted on the edge of the counter, each one crammed into a large, gaudy, gold ring that was at least a half-size too small.  
  
“You’re lookin’ for a coroner, motherfucker,” he growled as he pulled an enormous .44 Magnum from its hiding place under the register. He backed up and cocked the weapon in Sam’s face. The gun’s heavy muzzle swayed as Saul trembled with adrenaline and a healthy dose of panic. Sweat glistened in the curly salt-and-pepper grey hair blanketing his forearm.  
  
Sam kept his eyes locked dead on Saul’s pock-marked face and raised his hands slowly, taking a step back in a temporary gesture of peace. “The necklace, Saul. It’s a pendant shaped like a golden head, with horns, strung on a leather cord. I’m sure you’ll know it when you see it. There’s not another one like it in the world.”  
  
“You’ve got exactly three fuckin’ seconds to get the fuck out of here before I blow your brains all over the wall,  _freak_ ,” Saul replied, his mouth curled into a sneer over his yellowed teeth. He puffed out his chest confidently but his face was painted in a sweaty pallor of fear.  
  
“Now where would I find something like that in your fine establishment?” Sam asked calmly, spreading his hands like Vanna White showing off Saul’s junkyard of dusty discards, junkie thievings and other people's stereos.  
  
“One,” Saul said, still sneering.  
  
“The amulet, Saul. I know Jonesy sold it to you, he told me himself and I don’t think he’d lie about something like that.”  
  
“Two.”  
  
“He’s one of Dante’s boys, I understand you know them well.” Sam flashed the man his prettiest smile, the one Dean always liked best.  
  
“Three.”  
  
Before Saul’s finger could even twitch over the trigger, Sam’s hand swung in a blur between them, clipping the huge Magnum neatly out of his fat fingers and sending it skidding across the worn wood countertop before clattering loudly to the floor on Sam’s side of the counter.  
  
“How much did you give him for it, Saul?” Sam said, louder now, angry, his patience waning. “Twenty bucks? Forty?”  
  
“So fuckin’ what, man!? So I bought some crummy necklace off a guy with a drug problem. I don’t fuckin remember that shit! It ain’t my fuckin’ problem.” Saul was ballsy, Sam had to give him that.  
  
“That necklace, Saul. It was  _priceless_. You know all he did was shoot that cash up his fucking veins.”  
  
“Who the fuck cares, man. Who you think you are anyway? Comin’ up in here and givin’ me trouble over shit I ain’t got nothin’ to do with!?” Saul leaned over the counter with his finger pointed at the center of Sam’s chest as he shouted. There was rage in his eyes, furious righteousness. “When Dante hears about this you’re a fucking dead man, clown boy!”  
  
“It’s not death if you refuse it, Saul. I’m living, breathing proof of that.” Sam leaned forward, his arms spread wide, letting the man’s thick finger probe his bare sternum, revealed by the deep V of his tattered, black t-shirt. Saul’s eyes flicked down at the skin his finger was touching. They widened in fear as he registered how cold Sam’s skin was to the touch. “Now, where is it, Saul? This is the last time I’ll ask nicely.”  
  
“Fuck you, man,” Saul snarled as he pulled back, eyes quickly shifting over to the cash register. He made his move, diving to the left and pulling a huge military issue combat knife from the side of the register. He slashed out wildly in Sam’s direction but with a flap of his leather trench, Sam sidestepped the desperate attempt and vaulted over the counter, grabbing Saul’s outdated Member’s Only jacket in his right hand. He used the momentum to whip Saul around and slam him against the counter’s edge. Saul gasped loudly in pain as his ribs collided with the hardwood edge before Sam smashed him face first into the case of dusty electronics behind him.  
  
He swiped the knife out of Saul’s loosened grip and used his other hand to slam the pawnbroker’s head down on the counter next to the abandoned shotgun. Saul flailed and struggled, trying to get his arms underneath his body for leverage, reaching for the gun, for anything he could use to defend himself against the assault.  
  
“Now,” Sam panted, low and dangerous in Saul’s ear. “Let’s see what we can do to jog that foggy memory of yours.” He nailed the man’s scrambling hand to the countertop with the knife, holding the back of Saul’s neck firm, face pressed into the counter with a close-up view of his impaled right hand.  
  
Saul howled in pain, a desperate, ugly sound like a rabid dog caught in a bear trap. His eyes bugged out in terror as blood surged up around the wound. His hand twitched involuntarily around the two inch wide blade piercing his palm, pinning it solidly to the thick, wood countertop. Sam waited quietly as the man’s fight emptied out of him, his whimpers faded, and his blood pooled and dripped down the glass front of the display case.

A glint of shiny metal caught Sam’s eye through the dusty glass. Next to a row of stolen watches and guns scraped of their ID numbers was a spread of jewelry.  
  
“Here we go,” Sam said as he knelt down next to the incapacitated, whimpering man. He shoved trays of rings and bracelets to the side before spotting a faded green cardboard box at the corner of the display case. “Is this where you stashed it, Saul?” The box held a tangle chains, rings, watches and other assorted jewelry collecting dust, waiting to be sorted and sold. “For safe keeping, clearly...”  
  
Saul looked down at Sam, his face covered in flop sweat, nodding absently before focusing his attention back on the knife Sam had driven through the back of his hand.  
  
Sam pulled the box out of its hiding place and sat back on the narrow patch of floor between the counter and shelving unit lining the back wall of the shop. He crossed his legs and settled the box gently in his lap before he began to dig through it with long, careful fingers. He pulled knotted tangles of chain free, flinging them out of the box. Bracelets and necklaces spun through the air like floppy spaghetti noodles, clanging against the doors of the display case and the metal frame of the shelving unit, skittering across the concrete floor.  
  
Finally, after several minutes of pouring through the grimy box of treasures Sam spotted a snaking cord of cracked black leather. Sam’s eyes fluttered closed as memory washed over him. He had found it. His fingers wound through the cord, tugging gently to extract his prize. Sam’s heart swelled with a love so deep he felt it would consume him.  
  
Two boys in a shabby hotel room, clinging to one another in the chaos of their lives, looking for a small semblance of normalcy at Christmas time. Young, bright eyed Sam Winchester pressing a small, neatly wrapped package into his brother’s hand with nothing but the purest love and devotion. He knew Dean would always be there for him, would sacrifice everything if he had to.  
  
“ _Here, take this._ ”  
  
“ _No. No, that’s for Dad_.”  
  
“ _Dad lied to me. I want you to have it_.”  
  
“ _You sure_?”  
  
Sam had never been more certain about anything in his young life. He nodded and looked into his brother’s big, green eyes. “I’m sure.”  
  
Dean gazed down at the small package and turned it in his hands, treasuring it for a moment just for the gesture, before tearing the paper open. His voice caught a bit in his throat as he pulled the amulet out and looked at it with wide, wet eyes. “Thank you, Sam. I–I love it.”  
  
The sincerity in Dean’s young, freckled face made Sam’s stomach drop. He let the memory wash over him as beautiful as it was painful, young Dean beaming as he slipped the necklace over his head.  
  
Even when Sam and Dean were apart, even when they were fighting like cats and dogs, with everything they had been through, Dean never took it any longer than to take a shower. It had bashed him in the face, almost chipped his front teeth, but the bond it represented was always more important to Dean. A tangible, physical representation of their love. Sam could understand now that it was as significant as any ring on Dean’s finger could have been. It was their story, their legacy. The relationship they had built despite the odds, outside the fear and shame of taboo.  
  
The amulet was stuck in the tangle of chains in the box and Sam’s heart lurched in his chest for a moment as he longed to have it in his hand. He needed to see the golden face, stroke his fingers over its worn façade, and warm it against his skin. He gasped when he finally yanked it free, watching it for a moment as it swung like a pendulum from the brittle, bent leather thong clutched in his trembling hand. He closed his fist tightly around the amulet and for a moment he swore he could smell Dean again, feel his presence around him. His warm, comforting embrace, and the soft press of his full lips against the back of Sam’s neck.  
  
Sam reached into his pocket, pulling out the ring he’d had made for Dean and never given him. He slipped the torn end of the leather strap through it, biting off the previous knot and tying the amulet and ring together around his own neck.  
  
He stood and pressed Saul’s greasy head down against the countertop once more, his palm flattening out over the man’s temple and his fingers fanning out and squeezing his plump, sweaty head. He pulled the shotgun off the counter and flipped it in his hand, using the butt of the gun to knock the knife out of Saul’s hand. It went spinning off onto the floor, clinking through the shards of glass littering the shop floor.  
  
Saul cried out in agony as the knife was torn free, clutching his hand to his chest protectively before Sam let him go. He slumped to the ground with his back against the shelving unit. Sam palmed the shotgun and rammed the butt of it across the bridge of Saul’s nose. The man yelped again, a disgusting, gurgling sound through the ruined pulp of his nose as he curled down into a ball, sobbing.  
  
“You chose the hard way, Saul. Now, you have one chance to live and another choice to make. I need you to deliver a little message to your friend Dante.”  
  
“N-no fucking way,” Saul managed, looking up at Sam with eyes that were already swelling shut from the trauma to his face. “He'll fuckin’ kill me, man.”  
  
“Who would waste time killing you, besides me?” Sam smirked as he leapt back over the countertop, leaving Saul in a bloodied, pathetic heap on the floor. “Your job is to make sure Dante knows I’m coming for him. Tell him Sam Winchester is going to chop off his fucking head and piss down his neck hole. Can you do that, Saul?”  
  
“You’re never gonna get Dante, you bat-shit crazy motherfucker. He’s got an army of juiced up thugs that won’t hesitate to blow a hole in your freaky ass if you show your face down at the club.”  
  
“Good, I want him to send out the welcome wagon. The more vermin I can exterminate the better.” Sam sneered down at Saul one last time before aiming the shotgun at the case of valuables behind the man. He could hear sirens in the distance as he sprayed buckshot across the shop, two huge shotgun blasts raining glass and debris down over Saul.  
  
“After you deliver your message, I expect you to get the fuck out of this town and never come back. If I see your fucking face again I will smash it into the concrete with my boot.”  
  
Sam left as the cavalry arrived, a lone cop car swinging around the corner at the end of the block as Sam dipped into the alley behind the shop. He clutched the amulet in his palm, breathing deep at the feel of it and the ring as they dug deeply into the palm of his hand as the night folded in around him. Soon, soon Sam’s work would be done.


	11. Quos amor verus tenuit, tenebit ~ True love will hold on to those whom it has held

 

11.

**_Quos amor verus tenuit, tenebit_ **

 

  
_True love will hold on to those whom it has held_

 

  
Sam dreamed of a lake in summertime. A beautiful, jade green slip of water nestled amongst cottonwoods, weeping willows, and craggy, old elms. The lake’s surface was like glass, not a ripple in sight, and the fluffy, white clouds and blue sky above reflected brilliantly off of its mirrored surface. Sam flew high above the scene, soaring on the breeze, seeing the landscape below him with vivid clarity. There was a small, rocky beach surrounded by cattails on one side of the lake where two lanky boys laid stripped down to their tighty whities, skin nut-brown and sticky-hot, basking in the sunshine filtered through tree branches without a care in the world.  
  
Sam remembered this place but for once he was watching the tranquil scene from afar instead of being inserted into it like a glitch in a computer program. Dad had caught a job outside of Albuquerque and they were holed up in a cabin in the Sandia Mountains all summer. Sam was seventeen, about to start his senior year of high school, in a new town that hadn’t been decided on yet. Dean was twenty-one but instead of helping John out on the hunt he’d found a job at a grocery store in Edgewood three days a week. Dad grumbled something about Sammy being old enough to look after himself but he left anyway, a look of relief in his tired eyes in knowing his boys would be okay. They had each other.  
  
Dean ditched work that day, only a week or two into Sam’s last summer between grades, and drove them into the back roads of the foothills on the Kawasaki motorcycle the cabin’s former owner had stashed in the tool shed. He bought a big jug of crappy, too-sweet sangria and made Sam cradle it between them as they zipped down the winding washboard roads through private land. Dean was always amazing at finding hidden, secret places, like he had the sixth sense of a lone wolf trying to find a place of calm to call its own.  
  
There was a wild apricot tree near the shore and they filled their bellies with the overripe fruit like little kids until their lips and fingers and faces were sticky-orange and they were both just this side of nauseous. There was an ancient tire swing that they used to launch out into the murky water, seeing who could make the biggest splash, treading water and pushing one another under, limbs tangling and laughing until their faces and ribs hurt from it.  
  
Sam got his first kiss that day. It wasn’t really from Lindsay Stevens, the girl he went to homecoming with his junior year like he’d told Dean. It was from Dean himself, his lips sticky with apricot, his tongue musky with the fermented, tart-sweet of cheap sangria.  
  
  
  
  
_“I crave you like the parched desert craves the summer rain.”_  
  


_“I need you like the sparrow needs the wind beneath its wings.”_

  
  
  
_“I am connected to you like the rivers connect to the sea, forever – by blood, by soul.”_  
  
  
  
  


_“I love you so much that those words are meaningless. They don’t even begin to describe everything you are to me.”_

  


_“My hero.”_

_“My other half.”_

_“I miss you, Dean.”_

  
  
One day all this pain would mean something.


	12. Cineri gloria sera est ~ Glory paid to ashes comes too late

12.

**_Cineri gloria sera est_ **

  
_Glory paid to ashes comes too late_

 

  


  
Sam sat cradling the small, metal box of artifacts in his lap in front of the fireplace with one ragged piece of notebook paper trembling in his fingers. His own handwriting from years ago was scrawled somewhat indelicately across the page in black, felt tipped pen. The words, intimately familiar but not his own were illuminated on the thin, white paper by the low fire flickering behind them. They burned into his retina, setting fire to his heart.  
  


_”I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where._   
_I love you simply, without problems or pride:_   
_I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this,_   
_in which there is no I or you,_   
_so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,_   
_so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”_

_— Pablo Neruda_

  
Sam had read the poem countless times, committing it to memory after Ms. LaCour, his creative writing teacher from Fairmont High School in Waukegan, Illinois introduced her class of sophomores to Neruda. It was that year Sam realized, or finally admitted, how utterly gone he was for his brother. It was that year the weight of what that meant settled in around him like twenty tons of rusty iron.  
  
Sam spent a long time trying to push Dean away after his revelation and now he would give anything to go back in time and lay his heart on the line sooner. He had given Dean the poem the day he left for Stanford, pressing the folded up scrap of paper into his brother’s palm as he got on the bus to California, holding his tears until the Greyhound pulled out of the dirt parking lot. His heart hurt more in the years they spent apart than he ever let Dean know, he was sure Dean could never understand, and now… Now those lost years left a bitter fissure in Sam’s memories.  
  
He found the poem while emptying the contents of Dean’s wallet sometime in the confusing haze that was life post-Dean. Sam didn’t recognize it at first, had no idea Dean had kept it all those years, tucked amongst the folds of hustled bills and stolen credit cards. He read the words slowly, letting the tears fall drip onto the paper that had been rubbed soft with time, seeping into the ink and making it blur and bleed. He read them over and over until they were burned onto the backs of his eyelids, emblazoned on his heart forever. Until bile burned at the back of his throat and he wanted to claw his own heart out to stop it from aching.  
  
Eventually Sam folded the paper up, slowly, precisely, his fingers tracing over it as he thought of it touching Dean’s fingers, imagined him mouthing the words with soft, pink lips. “ _There is no I or you…_ ” Sam tucked the scrap of paper into the same pocket he used to stash that secret ring, the one he never had the balls to give to Dean, the one now entwined with the amulet’s horns, dangling around his neck. Sam traced his fingers over the amulet and the ring nestled next to it and gazed down at the contents of the metal box in his lap. It still smelled like the Impala’s trunk.  
  
He’d meticulously gathered its contents over the previous weeks. Every little artifact, every scrap of tangible proof he could find that proved Sam and Dean Winchester had ever existed. The pictures of their childhood, few though there were, went into the flames first. He tossed them in one by one, watching as their young faces bubbled and faded, breathing in the fumes as the fire consumed them. Next he watched the few photos they had of John and Mary Winchester do the same. Sam shed no tears for them, his soul too numb, and his mind too resolute to focus on much beside the task that lay before him. He thought both of his parents might find it fitting that flames and ash would always linger in Sam’s memory of them, he saw the tragedy in it but this time it was on his terms. He was saying goodbye. The fire was purifying, blessing his body, mind, and soul to take on the final tasks of his mortal life.  
  
The fake credit cards were next, the fake ID’s. The sickening smell of burning plastic and the black caustic smoke that came with it snaked up out of the fireplace and up over the Zeppelin poster that watched Sam silently as he destroyed the rest of these physical memories.  
  
Sam had grown to understand that their old life had never really left them behind. They kept the phony credentials, the bogus credit cards, a huge cache of weapons, and even John’s frayed journal, tucked away for a rainy day. They told themselves it was their legacy but Sam knew deep down it was just in case, just in the event they ever needed them again. The prophecy was a self-fulfilling one and the lore, the spells, the years of experience hadn’t saved them. John’s journal took a while to catch on fire but once it did, flames licked up the inside of the fireplace in bright red, the knowledge of a lifetime lost in an instant. Humanity’s loss.  
  
Sam clutched Angus’ studded leather collar, running his thumb over the name engraved into the worn tag that had clinked like a tinny bell from around the puppy’s neck. He was such a loyal little friend, looking at Sam with big, ice-blue eyes that comforted and understood him in a way no one besides Dean seemed to be able to. He was never good at staying off the bed or the couch despite Dean’s attempts at obedience training, he chewed up one of Sam’s expensive running shoes, and stained the new carpet they put upstairs but Sam considered him family and so did Dean despite “never being a dog person.”  
  
Sam breathed deep and imagined smelling the pup’s soft fur, feeling the warmth of his small body cradled in his arms. Whoever had removed the dog’s corpse from the house after the attack had left the collar on the mantle for whomever would return for it. For that Sam was grateful. He pressed his lips to the collar and said goodbye before tossing it into the flames with everything else.  
  
Sam closed his eyes and let the anguish rush over him, through him, using it to reinforce the fury building in his body. A tinny voice in the background… the radio? Words harsh and clinical over the sad, soulful Doors song playing on Dean’s record player.  
  
" _Strong southerly winds over much of Kansas and Missouri have brought blowing dust and severe thunderstorm warnings continuing into the weekend. The latest radar report from Kansas City shows thunderstorms may be heavy tonight throughout northwest Missouri, and eastern Kansas. Temperatures will stay mild tonight with cooler weather as the rain begins. Chances of tornado activity will increase through the weekend as temperatures increase._ ”  
  
Storms were coming. Maybe a bad one. Maybe Sam was calling it to him. A swell of music pulled Sam out of his thoughts, the cold drone of the announcer faded to the psychedelic strumming chords, growing louder and louder underneath the static from the speakers. Sam closed his eyes. His work was almost done. He ached for relief.  
  
Sam drizzled the lighter fluid over the floor, watching it glisten on the stained floorboards and reflecting the fire light. He sprayed it across the mantle, the walls, and the curtains before chucking the mostly empty bottle into the dwindling fire. He pulled the Neruda poem he wrote down for Dean all those years ago out of his pocket and unfolded it again, gently and reverently.  
  
He held it to the flames like a prayer, like a promise. He watched the soft paper crinkle and burn, transfixed for a moment by the brilliant lick of blue flame at the edge where the paper turned brown, then black, ashy white flakes of it falling to the floor. He stepped back to the foyer and dropped it into the spray of lighter fluid, closing his eyes and breathing in the acrid smell of his hopes and dreams burning away, once and for all. He said a silent goodbye to everything that was and everything that could have been as Jim Morrison’s haunting voice crooned in the background.  
  


_The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on_

_He took a face from the ancient gallery_

_And he walked on down the hall_

  
  
Sam felt the flames licking at his back as he walked down their walkway for the last time. He walked east, away from the sunset, toward Kansas City proper.  
  
 _CAW! CAW! CAW!_  
  
It was nice to have company as he walked into battle. The brilliant colors of the horizon reflecting off the puddles on the asphalt, glistening with an oily sheen like a crow’s wing in the sunlight.


	13. Exitus acta probat ~ The result validates the deeds

13.

**_Exitus acta probat_ **

  
_The result validates the deeds_

  


  
It was still early for downtown to be so empty on a Friday, but the weather reports had escalated as the sky darkened and filled with boiling black and green clouds. Commuters anxious to get home clogged the highway exits as the wispy hint of funnels descended from clouds eerily illuminated from behind by the flicker of lightning and the setting sun. The turbulent, velvety surface of the cloud’s bellies seemed almost close enough for Sam to touch and the smell of ozone was thick in the air as tornado sirens pierced his eardrums. He pulled the leather collar of his trench up around his freshly painted face as the rain began to fall in angry, stinging droplets.  
  
He watched the entrance of The Gallery from the roof of the shuttered building across the street. Patrons and staff scurried to their cars to get ahead of the storm as slushy lumps of hail joined the enormous rain drops and the wind picked up speed. Sam’s hair and coat flapped around him, sounding like the feathered wings of a huge carrion bird as he hunched down, patient, waiting.  
  
He stayed still as a sentry until only a handful of cars remained in front of the club. He recognized two amongst them, the steel grey Audi from the gas station when Dante and his boys appeared like the specter of death in the Impala’s rearview mirror, and a run down 70’s Eldorado with faded burgundy paint that belonged to Saul, the pawn broker Sam recently acquainted himself with. Sam smiled with the knowledge that Dante knew Sam was coming for him. He was holed up in his burrow, surely puffing out his chest for his cronies, but Sam knew Dante would be unable to escape the nagging tug of fear sneaking up from the corners of his mind. When the red, neon OPEN sign hanging below the Gallery’s marquee flickered off Sam crossed the street, ducking in the squall, and pushed open the club’s double doors as casually as if he were any other customer.  
  
“Hey, man. We’re closed! Ain’t you hear the weather reports?” The bartender was hunched over his cash drawer with his back to Sam as he shouted.  
  
His round, goateed face blanched with fear as he turned to usher Sam out the doorway. His eyes widened almost comically drinking in the towering specter that smiled at him in the dim club lights, the white greasepaint on his face lit up like Christmas morning from the backlights lining the bar’s mirrored backsplash. The man’s mouth drooped open like that of a giant carp, gasping slow and soundless, and his brow erupted in tiny beads of panicked sweat.  
  
“I – you’re – but Dante said you were – how…?” The man’s voice tapered off to a shredded whisper as Sam kicked him square in the chest with his huge, booted foot. It sent the bartender flying back against the corner of the bar, his back jerking violently as the hard, wooden edge jammed into his spinal column. Glasses and bottles tinkered from the impact as he crumpled to the floor in a heap, his hairy arms folded protectively around his head like a child hiding under his blanket from the monster in his closet.  
  
“Go. Now,” Sam ordered, low and deadly serious. “Go or you will die.” Sam kicked him sharply in the ribs to knock him out of his paralysis, his nose crinkling up at the smell of fresh, hot piss as the balding, portly fellow scrambled to his hands and knees and scuttled toward the door.  
  
Sam heard the club’s front door slam and the bartender’s tires squealing in retreat as he fished a clean highball glass from behind the bar and selected a mostly full bottle of Johnny Walker Blue to pour. The quiet of the club settled in around Sam while he drank the whiskey. The speakers were silent, the chairs empty, the stages vacant and dark, and yet the pungent, rancid odor of men’s horny sweat and the flowery, cloying stench of stripper’s perfume lingered heavy in the space. It was an unescapable, permanent smell like a dead rat was rotting behind the drywall.  
  
Sam heard the floorboards creak above his head, the shuffling of feet. He closed his eyes and counted the owners of the footfalls as the honey-brown liquor spread warm and spicy over his tongue. Four men, maybe five. Low, urgent voices, the sound of a clip being shoved into a handgun. Sam let his neck roll back and forth on his shoulders, swallowing and breathing deep before he scanned the room for the door that led upstairs to the cobra’s den.  
  
He yanked the door open unceremoniously, finding a dark, narrow stairway whose walls, steps, and railing were painted matte black like the rest of the club’s interior. The voices and footfalls he heard before fell silent as the storm outside continued to surge, wind whistling eerily through cracks in the building’s sagging exterior.  
  
“Can Dante come out and play?” Sam called, his voice echoing loudly in the confined space. He laughed, the sound rolling through him like the thunder in the sky outside, as he took a few steps back and waited patiently for Dante to send in the cavalry.  
  
They weren’t quiet about it. What sounded like orders and protests were shouted across the landing at the top of the stairs and two large men dressed in the same uniform of tight black t-shirt and grey dress slacks as the bartender had been stomped down the stairs in single file, guns raised and trained on Sam.  
  
“Freeze, motherfucker or I’ll unload this entire clip in your spooky ass!” The more slender of the two said, his jaw twitching like a lizard’s as he licked his lips and stared Sam down. His partner stepped to his side. The tight auburn curls and reddish stubble on his round cheeks gave him a childlike quality even as he tried to look menacing.  
  
“Holy shit, man. I thought Saul took some bad PCP or somethin’ but here he is.”  
  
They both swallowed hard, heads twitching like they desperately wanted to look at one another to get a read on the situation. They were unable to tear their eyes away from Sam who stood like a statue at the edge of the black and white checkered dance floor.  
  
“You wanna pop him or should I?” Said the redhead, shifting his gun between his sweaty palms.  
  
Sam shook his head slowly and chuckled, loud enough for Thing 1 and Thing 2 to hear.  
  
“Somethin’ funny, clown boy? You’re really off your fuckin’ rocker, ain’t ya?” The reptilian one said, stepping forward and squeezing the trigger. The glock bucked in his hand and the muzzle flash made both of Dante’s men flinch.  
  
The bullet tore through Sam’s left shoulder, just below his collarbone, the force of the impact knocking him back a few steps. He hunched around the injury, his hand clutching over it more out of muscle memory than actual need. The wound burned in the distant way an old injury might ache with the onset of a storm and the blood that gushed out against Sam’s palm was thick and cool like a puddle of ancient motor oil that had settled under a junkyard car.  
  
“So the ghost does bleed after all!” The goon who shot him said triumphantly.  
  
Sam looked up at the men from under the veil of his damp bangs, smiling wide and sloughing the blue-black blood off onto the floor. His ears were ringing but he was no worse for wear.  
  
“You’re going to have to do better than that, I’m afraid,” Sam cautioned. “Death, like virtue, has its degrees.”  
  
Sam reached beneath his coat for Dean’s old sawed-off shotgun, the movement quick and fluid in the darkened club. He dove toward the thugs as he fired one shell, then the other. The thumping boom of the weapon was deafening, louder than the haphazard return fire Dante’s men attempted.  
  
One of their bullets shredded a nasty gash through Sam’s right bicep, missing the bone, but the others missed completely. Sam slid to a stop and surveyed the damage, smoke still lingering in the air. Pellets had peppered the two men head-to-toe, knocking them back and leaving them gasping and bloody, clutching their wounds pitifully. Sam smirked, reloading with expert quickness. The ominous sound of shells getting racked into the chamber paired with their pained sobs gave Sam a moment of pause.  
  
“Do you really want to die for him? Are your lives worth so little?”  
  
Red lifted his shaking hand and pulled off another round, hitting Sam in the abdomen. Sam didn’t make a sound as he unleashed another of the sawed-off’s rounds only inches from the man’s face, quickly angling the weapon up against the other man’s sternum.  
  
“The loyalty is admirable, truly,” Sam said, his eyes tilted down to dying man on the floor. He stepped closer to the other, pressing the gun to his already bleeding chest. “Are you as loyal, friend?”  
  
“Hell no, man. Fuck this.” He closed his eyes, shaking his head furiously.  
  
“Then go. Go and don’t look back, no matter what you hear.”  
  
Sam ascended the stairs before Thing 1 had even made it out of the club, leaving Thing 2 gurgling and bleeding on the floor to die. Now for their master and whatever other vermin were infesting the upstairs.  
  
The landing at the top of the steps opened onto a dimly lit VIP area done up in tacky brass, black crushed velvet, and leopard print. There was a half empty champagne bottle on the black lacquer table next to a melting bucket of ice, a half a dozen used champagne flutes, and a large mirror smudged with dusty white. Someone had abandoned their party.  
  
There was a doorway to Sam’s right that ended up being a supply closet and another in the far corner of the room that proved locked when Sam quietly tried the handle. He stood in the quiet darkness for a moment, listening to the storm outside, waiting for Dante or another one of his goons to make a move. His eyes slipped shut and he could almost see his heartbeat, the ache of his wounds pulsing black-red-black-red behind his eyes. No sirens for now, no screams other than the echo of ones he had yet to rip from his enemies.  
  
Sam heard Saul before he saw him, a pitiful sob escaping from behind one of the couches. He slipped the sawed-off back through the holster sewn into his coat and pulled Dean’s pearl-handled Colt from where it was tucked in the back of his pants, walking slowly, with heavy footsteps, as he cocked the weapon.  
  
“I hear a little rat,” Sam said in a faux whisper, his eyes wild and wicked and his smile wide. “Come out and play with me, little rat.”  
  
Sam heard Saul choke back another frightened whimper, trying hard not to breathe too loudly and failing. Sam could practically hear the man’s enlarged heart pounding its way through his chest.  
  
“I’m going to assume you delivered my message, Saul. Now, tell me where your boss is before I get impatient. The pathetic welcome wagon he sent for me is long gone.”  
  
Sam peered over the arm of the couch, back into the gap that Saul had somehow managed to wedge himself into. His shadow passed over Saul, dimming what little light illuminated the boxed-in corner. Saul looked up at him with wide, terrified eyes, his fat, red hand plastered over his mouth, face streaming with sweat.  
  
“There you are,” Sam said with a huge grin as he reached down and grabbed Saul by the front of his sweat stained t-shirt, hauling him up like he weighed nothing at all.  
  
Saul’s hands clawed at Sam’s arms as he scrambled to speak, his words in a hushed whisper running together like they were fueled by pure madness. “He don’t got the car no more, man. That big, black beauty. Sold her, said she was too hot once you started poppin’ his crew. Just go, go or he’s gonna fuckin’ kill us both, you dumb son of a bitch,” Saul stammered, tears streaming down his face.  
  
“Well thank you, Saul. That was quite a tale but you didn’t answer my question. Where’s Dante?”  
  
“Right here you crazy piece of shit.”  
  
The room lit up like the Fourth of July, Dante’s glock emptying indiscriminately into the VIP area from the previously locked door in the corner. Sam shoved Saul back into his corner and dove gracefully to the floor between one of the velvet couches and the coffee table, knowing he had been hit and moving as if the injuries gave him fuel. Blood and gunpowder filled Sam’s nostrils and the sounds of Dante screaming like an angry Apache and Saul gurgling and crying in the last moments of his life filled his ears but all he could think, see, or feel was furious, righteous vengeance.  
  
Sam was up again before all the shell casings had even hit the floor, taking advantage of Dante fumbling to load a new clip. Both men’s hands shook with bloodlust and adrenaline and in that moment they were the same creature, two violent, vicious beasts each assured of its own triumph. Sam slammed into Dante, his fists in the lapels of the slender man’s black sport coat, yanking him forward even as the force of Sam’s momentum slammed them back through the open door into Dante’s office. Sam’s forehead smashed into the bridge of Dante’s nose, right between his piercing grey eyes, with a crack that rivaled the volume of the gunshots that still had both their ears ringing.  
  
Thunder clapped outside as they crashed to the floor, their bodies tangled together like snarling tigers as the wind tugged violently at the roof beams. It was as if God’s own hands were trying to pry the roof off. Sam’s huge hand palmed the front of Dante’s face, his gnashing teeth ripping at the flesh of his palm as he smashed his head back into the floor with every ounce of strength he had. Once. Twice. Thunder smashed and the lights inside the office flickered and then went black as Dante went limp in Sam’s vicious embrace.  
  
  


~~~~~~

  
  
Sam sat for long, patient minutes on the edge of Dante’s desk, listening to the battered man breathe shallowly where he was strapped tight to his own chair in the middle of the floor. Sam looked down at his bare arms, the network of scars on his skin, the bloody, tattered cotton crisscrossing his torso. Sam’s collection of surely fatal wounds oozed lazily, the puddle of blood spreading across the top of Dante’s desk was as dark and thick as the mist swirling through Sam’s mind as he waited.  
  
He had shucked off his tattered coat after the fight, using it to cover Saul’s twitching and mostly faceless corpse. He’d left his weapons behind too, lined up across the table on a bed of shattered mirror and glass. Everything Sam had to say to Dante would be with his two bare hands.  
  
He’d tied the unconscious club owner to the desk chair in the center of the floor, right on the spot where Dante had fallen quiet under Sam’s initial assault. There was no duct tape in Dante’s desk drawers so Sam had improvised, using the cord from the floor lamp in the corner and several feet worth of braided golden rope with tasseled ends that had been holding back the velvet curtains in the VIP area. He was tied down as tightly as Sam had been that night, only Sam had left Dante’s mouth unfettered. He needed to hear the man to repent for his crimes or at minimum beg for his life even as Sam choked it out of him.  
  
Eventually Dante coughed and gasped, spitting clotted blood and even a few shards of broken teeth onto the floor as he fought for consciousness.  
  
“There’s Mister Sleepy Head!” Sam said with an edge as bright as a razor, drawing Dante’s focus to where he sat in wait. Thunder clapped loudly and the walls rattled with the force of the winds outside but Sam only smiled. “You hear that, Dante? There’s a chorus of angels watching. The sky’s ready to crack itself open and accept everything I have to give it.”  
  
“Fuck you, freak.” Dante spit, his accent thick on his swollen tongue.  
  
Sam stood up and took a deep breath. “Try again,” he said softly as he swung his leg up as gracefully as a ballet dancers, kicking Dante across his smug fucking face. Dante yelped and let his head hang awkwardly over his shoulder as he recoiled from the pain. Sam stood still, giving his foe space to recover, to think, to choose his words carefully.  
  
“Who –  _what_  – the fuck are you…?” Dante managed, his words almost unintelligible between his bloody, ruined lips and shattered teeth.  
  
“I think you have a pretty good idea who I am, Dante,” Sam said. The rolling, dark sound of his voice was punctuated by distant thunder and the near-constant wind outside. “What I am, well… the jury’s still out on that.”  
  
“Motherfucker I saw you die…” Dante said, stronger now, more angry than afraid.  
  
“As you see your own death now?” Sam‘s words were scornful, black.  
  
Dante coughed again, trying to spit out some of the blood and shards of enamel out of his mouth but the mess dribbled in pathetic gobs down the side of his chin instead. “I fucking killed you,” he managed through the gore, still defiant.  
  
“Yes, Dante. You did. And yet here I am, sent by the universe to balance the scales. Nature demands symmetry, you know.”  
  
“Fuck you,  _faggot_ ,” Dante spit, his blood spattering vivid red on the floor in front of Sam’s boots.  
  
It was thoughtless, instant, a reflex. Sam’s punch. Like a freight train. His fist was a righteous ball of fury, bone, and flesh hardened by rage and pain into a boulder that smashed Dante square between the eyes. His head whipped back like there was no muscle in his neck anymore, like he had a bobble head’s spring instead of a spine. Sam used it like a punching bag, nailing the man’s face over and over again, fists pummeling one after another until his knuckles were shredded and bloody, until Dante’s features were nothing but soft masses of tenderized cartilage and bone pulp. Hints of yellow fat peeked through angry gashes, pink and red tissue, white flashes of bone glinting through the blood pouring down Dante’s face. The last blow was so hard the chair fell back onto the hardwood floor, its frame crumpling under Dante’s weight.  
  
There was a moment of quiet then, a vacuum in time where there was no sound in the room or outside in the night, like they were caught up in the eye of the storm. Then, a terrible, jerking sound like a bloodied corpse being dragged across train tracks came rattling out of Dante’s chest. A laugh. The sound of pure evil, as bad as the kind the Winchesters made it their business to exterminate, only this time it was blindingly, painfully mortal.  
  
“THEY WERE HAPPY,” Sam shrieked as he leapt onto Dante’s splayed form. “THEY WERE FREE!” Sam’s fists turned to claws, his open palms smashing into Dante’s smashed cheekbones, his fingers sinking deep into the torn, bloody thing that was once Dante’s handsome face. “FINALLY. FUCKING. FREE!”  
  
Sam screamed, he howled, beyond words. A foreign sound that raked at his own eardrums, burned his throat raw, made his lungs ache. His hands were shredded, torn open by the jagged bones of Dante’s face, his smashed in skull.  
  
“YOU FUCKING MONSTER!”  
  
Sam cried into the void, his head tilted up, eyes on the ceiling as it disintegrated into the sum of its parts. Shingles and boards peeled back like the lid of a tin can, beams snapped like popsicle sticks, all of it swirling above as he felt his thumbs slide into Dante’s eye sockets. His fingers popped through muscle and fluid, gushing, surging around his hands as the roof was ripped off The Gallery, sucked up into the eye of the tornado, the roar of the wind finally drowning out Sam’s insane, vicious howls.  
  
Sam  _was_  the tornado. The monsoon. The tidal wave. He was a fucking volcano, consuming and reforming the entire world as he tore Dante apart with his bare hands. Sam wasn’t human any more. He wasn’t Sam Winchester. He had become worse than a monster or a demon. He had become fate itself. He was that woman in the poster, the hermit, the hierophant. The future and the past foretold, the beginning and the end of time, that crow in the sky. That voice screaming in his own head.  
  
He felt Dante’s heart stop as if he was holding it in his hands. The man’s body tensed and convulsed under Sam one final, brutal time before there was nothing but the storm.


	14. Optimum est pati quod emendare non possis ~ It is best to endure what you cannot change

14.

**_Optimum est pati quod emendare non possis_ **

  
_It is best to endure what you cannot change_

 

  


  
Memories flooded Sam’s consciousness in brilliant, bright relief. Vivid and painful like fireworks behind his eyelids, like a thousand furious comets blazing through his solar plexus.  
  
It was a Monday night, past eleven by the time Sam was done grading papers and Dean had finally gotten back from his jobsite in Topeka and showered the day’s grime from his skin. They sat cozy and quiet on the couch, watching the game Sam recorded and eating the last of the turkey chili Dean made the day before, their bowls piled high with Fritos and cheddar cheese.  
  
Ten minutes into the second half Angus started barking, not something completely unusual as Angus seemed to think it was his personal responsibility to terrorize every bird, squirrel, and cat in the entire neighborhood. Only that night, he wouldn’t stop. He bounced anxiously between the living room and kitchen, growling and yipping at an increasingly fevered pitch. Sam installed a doggie door in the backdoor so Angus would have easy access to the backyard but the puppy was hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it.  
  
“I’ll let him out,” Sam grumbled even as he smiled down at the excitable little mutt. “Let me show you, again. We gave you your own door, remember, you nutless wonder.” Angus had looked ridiculous with the cone around his neck after they had him fixed but his sutures healed up quickly and he was just as feisty as ever. Angus darted into the yard barking like a vicious but miniature junkyard dog when Sam bent down and pushed the rubber flap of the doggie door open for him.  
  
Sam was outside looking up at the stars when he heard the glass break. He turned back toward the house thinking maybe Dean had dropped a beer bottle in the sink, it wouldn’t have been the first time. Angus ran back to the house, barking ferociously and scratching at the doggie door desperately.  
  
“It was just Dean, you little over-protective shit,” Sam chuckled before pushing the flap open with his foot. He looked down at Angus who seemed hesitant to enter the kitchen, whining and frantic, looking up at Sam but not going through the small opening. Sam shrugged and opened the back door, nudging the dog’s rear end with his boot to get him past the threshold. That’s when the butt of the gun smashed down over the bridge of Sam’s nose. There was a bright, white shock of pain and then darkness as Sam crumpled to the floor in a heavy heap.  
  
Sam came to in the kitchen duct taped securely to one of their antique chrome dining chairs. The side of Sam’s face throbbed like maybe his cheekbone was cracked and his nose was broken. Blood streamed down the bottom half of his face and over his chest from the split across the bridge of his nose. His hands were garroted behind his back at an awkward angle, his ankles were lashed firmly to the chair’s sturdy legs, and a thick strip of duct tape was covering his mouth, having been wrapped around his head several times. The first pass had allowed the tape to slide into his mouth, between his teeth, and it was pushing his tongue down. Another two or three strips of tape sealed it shut, muffling any sound he might try to make, forcing him to breathe through his swollen, damaged nose.  
  
He fought the urge to panic, closing his eyes and breathing deep, trying to quiet his mind and focus. The chair was at a random angle, Sam’s knees pointed into the kitchen and his body angled away from the entry to the living room. He blinked his eyes in an effort to chase away the haze in his vision, still working to level out his frantic breathing. He tugged at his bonds fiercely, unable to shift his wrists or ankles more than a few centimeters under the thick tape. Angus was yipping and whimpering somewhere in Sam’s peripheral.  
  
“I thought I told you to shut that fuckin’ dog up, bro.”  
  
Sam turned his aching head toward the voice in the living room and forced his eyes to focus as a tall, slender man with long hair tied into a messy knot at the back of his neck kicked the dog, his little body sliding across the foyer into the wall with a yelp. Another man, greasy blonde with bloodshot eyes, stomped over to where Angus whimpered weakly and reached down, snapping his small, fuzzy neck with his bare hand.  
  
Sam flinched, biting back a sob, his heart aching for the sweet little dog. Killed without a second thought, with a cruel, easy flick of the wrist. He stayed quiet, breathing deep and trying to orient himself even as he fought back tears and the tightness of panic that blossomed in his chest.  _Where the fuck was Dean?_  
  
“Look at the fuckin’ mouth on this faggot, Marcus. Lips prettier than your baby mama, am I right?”  
  
Sam knew that accent. New Jersey. Sam’s mind was still groggy from being knocked out and it fumbled with the information, sickness and dread spreading through his limbs pulling his focus from who or why, suddenly focused intently on what they were about to do to Dean.  
  
Sam craned his neck back to see but the angle was bad. Three, maybe four men were in their living room. Where Dean had been sitting only moments before. He couldn’t hear Dean, couldn’t see. He could hear them moving, breathing, and high as fuck on adrenaline and bloodlust. He could make out the tall man stepping closer to the couch as he stripped off his jacket and dress shirt, laying them gently across the back of the leather recliner. Sam heard the distinct tinkle of metal, the hiss of a zipper as the man undid his pants.  
  
 _No. Oh God, no._  
  
“Hold his jaw for me, Marcus. Wanna give that throat a try before he comes to and tries to bite my dick off.”  
  
The men in the room laughed. A sickening, vicious sound like hyenas ready to feast on a fresh kill. It made Sam’s stomach lurch, his blood boil. He shifted is upper body as quietly as he could, wanting to draw as little attention to himself as possible, pushing past the pain as he tried to see, urgently needing to come up with a plan.  
  
A broad shouldered black man, the one the tall man called Marcus, had one leg on the floor and the other on the couch, his knee propped up on something.  
  
 _ **Stop, you idiot. You don’t want to see this.**_  
  
Sam blinked past the warning, urgent voice in his own head and forced himself to look. He watched as Marcus sunk his fingers into Dean’s shower-soft hair and pulled his head back, shoving his throat up against arm of the couch. Dean’s eyes were closed, the left one swelled mostly shut and turning a sickening shade of purple. There were lacerations across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. His body was limp and his mouth hung open on its own accord, blood dripping from a split in the center of his soft, pink bottom lip.  
  
 _ **Don’t look, Sam. You don’t need to see this. Not again.**_  
  
That voice again, telling him to look away. He couldn’t. How could he help if he didn’t see…?  
  
“Yeah, Dante,” Marcus spurred, “Get it, get it.” His leather gloved hand curled around Dean’s jaw and tugged it open, Marcus’ knee shoved into his lower back, just in case.  
  
 _ **DON’T LOOK!**_  
  
Dante fished his thick, disgustingly hard prick out of his pants and rubbed it over Dean’s lips. Sam fought even more fiercely, yanking his wrists so sharply it felt as if he might dislocate his shoulder. He didn’t care if it meant he could break free, get to Dean, and stop this.  
  
Dante fucked deep into Dean’s throat, a sickening wet sound like someone pounding a slab of bloody meat. A low, lascivious groan escaped Dante’s lips and it made Sam snap. He twisted his body with all his might, putting every ounce of furious strength into pulling his wrists free.  
  
“What’s this? Big boy finally woke up to join the party,” a sickly looking younger man in a black tank top stepped into Sam’s line of sight, blocking his view of the man still raping his brother’s unconscious throat.  
  
The blonde man who killed Angus was suddenly at Sam’s side in the kitchen too, his arm raised, ready to whip him again with the side of his gun.  
  
“Houston, no,” Dante ordered as he continued to thrust. Houston hit Sam anyway, hard enough to topple the chair.  
  
“Shit, bro! Watch it!” The younger man yelped as he sidestepped Sam’s fall. The wind was knocked out of Sam’s burning lungs as the chair crashed awkwardly in the space between the kitchen and living room. Sam was sucked into darkness again, the wet slurp of Dante’s cock pulling out of Dean’s throat was the last thing he heard.  
  
Sam woke with his bleeding face pressed into the carpet with a perfect view of what was happening to his brother. This time, there were strangled, angry sounds coming from Dean as he coughed and sputtered around Marcus’ thick cock. Dante was on Dean’s back now. His pistol was drawn and digging into Dean’s temple, his other hand in Dean’s hair, yanking his head back as Marcus had done previously. Marcus’ hips stuttered as Dean’s sounds escalated. Sam couldn’t tell when Dean had come to or how long he had been out.  
  
“Don’t worry, bitch knows if you feel teeth I’ll unload this entire clip up his fuckin’ ass. Give it to him. Choke him on it,” Dante ordered Marcus.  
  
Sam tried to scream, wanting to make sure Dean knew he was there, that he was conscious, that he was going to try. The noise in his throat was muffled and strained but Sam bellowed against the tape over his mouth, thrashing and fighting against the chair he was still firmly strapped to.  
  
Marcus pulled out then, leaving Dean to gasp and cough violently, struggling weakly against Dante’s weight.  
  
“Here, help me get him on the floor,” Dante said to Marcus. Both men’s cocks were still out, dripping with Dean’s spit and their own slick, as they grabbed him and hauled him to the floor only a few feet away from Sam.  
  
“You’re fucking dead men,” Dean growled, his voice shaky and weak as it existed his damaged throat. Marcus kicked him swiftly in the cheek, a mercy really. Dean’s head falling limp against the carpet, unconscious again.  
  
Sam was screaming obscenities that none of them could make out, thrashing like a caged tiger against his bonds, tears streaming from his eyes.  
  
“Yeah, Jonesy, hold lover boy there up so he can watch. I’m gonna show his boy here how a real man fucks.”  
  
Jonesy and Houston righted Sam’s toppled over chair, it taking the two of them to maneuver him back into a sitting position. Sam kept trying to struggle but his muscles were burning and he could barely pull in a breath through his swelling nasal cavity. He had to calm down, had to fight the panic ever growing in his chest or he would choke on his own vomit, suffocate as his broken nose swelled shut completely.  
  
“You wanna break in this sweet, pink ass first, Houston or should I?” Dante asked. Sam couldn’t see Houston’s face but the silence in the room spoke volumes. The enthusiasm for their sport had faded as the adrenaline of the break in metabolized, perhaps. “Don’t give me that look,” Dante spit, still eager to have his fun. “This one fuckin’ likes it, you’ll see.”  
  
Dante pressed his foot against the back of Dean’s neck and pulled his ass up by the belt. He yanked Dean’s pants down roughly, exposing his ass.  
  
“Come on, you fuckin’ bitches. We’ve all done time!” Dante was angry now, goading his cohorts. “Don’t tell me you didn’t get a taste for sweet boy-pussy in lockup. You know this ass is good, look at his fuckin’ boyfriend over there. Dude’s probably hung like a pack mule, you know it’s gonna feel like fucking heaven once you’re inside.”  
  
Marcus looked back and forth between Houston and Jonsey, nodding them on, a look in his eyes that said “ _if you know what’s good for you, you’ll play along._ ”  
  
Houston took a step forward, unzipping his pants.  
  
“That’s right, baby. Get yourself a piece,” Marcus said, his voice tense even though he was still stroking his big, black dick.  
  
Dante pulled Houston under his arm and leaned down to give Dean’s ass a sharp, swift slap.  
  
“Look at that, Houston.” Dante slid his fingers up the crack of Dean’s ass. “It’s all slicked up and ready for you too. Guess we interrupted date night!” Dante cackled as Sam tried his best to fight.  
  
Dean moaned, his shoulders moving and his head rocking on the floor as he struggled to regain consciousness.  
  
“Stay down, you fuckin’ bitch,” Dante ordered, kicking Dean in the ribs several times as he shoved Houston to his knees behind Dean’s raised hips.  
  
“Damn, Dante, take it easy or you’re gonna kill him before he tells us where the fuckin’ car keys are,” Jonesy said from somewhere behind Sam.  
  
“Why don’t you go fuckin’ find him while we all take a ride, Jonesy,” Dante snarled. “You don’t mind sloppy seconds, do you? Probably won’t even be able to come given all that smack you shoot.”  
  
Jonesy leaned down to look at Sam, his pupils wide and eyes softer than the others. “You wanna tell me where the keys are?”  
  
“MMCKHH ROO,” Sam bit through the tape.  
  
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Jonesy lamented. “You’ll keep your ass still if you knew what was good for you,” Jonesy said before punching Sam in the jaw.  
  
The blow made Sam’s neck snap back, threatening to make him vomit into his taped up mouth. Sam choked back the spit filling his mouth and screamed against the tape. He screamed as loud as he could, over and over, doing everything he could to drown out the sounds of thighs slapping against Dean’s bare ass cheeks. Tears burned Sam’s eyes and sobs racked his body but he didn’t stop screaming. Not even when his throat felt like it was full of acid.  
  
Sam wasn’t sure if he stayed conscious for the entirety of the rape. He was vaguely aware of Dante slapping him, holding him by the hair, trying to force him to watch as the others took their turn on Dean’s limp body.  
  
Fury burned in every cell of Sam’s body, never letting himself fall complacent, never giving up. He screamed like a banshee as Dante delivered the final blows.  
  
Marcus handed him a gun and Dante shot Dean in the back, right over his heart, as he lie in a rumpled heap on the floor in the pool of the villains’ come.  
  
“Found the keys, lover boy. Thanks for the great time tonight,” Dante brought his face close to Sam’s, a repulsive smile spreading across his angular face. “Let’s go, fellas. Marcus, you drive the Audi. I’ll drive the Black Beauty. Gonna drop ‘er with Tony over in Liberty to scrape the VIN, give her a paint job. Somthin’ a little more flashy.”  
  
He turned and shot Sam as he opened the door to the garage almost as an afterthought. The first bullet pierced Sam’s gut, lodging somewhere in the base of his spine. The second hit Sam in the head, entering and exiting just over his right ear. Sam slumped in the chair and it fell sideways again, landing with a heavy, wet thud into the already copious puddle of blood spreading across the floor. His and Dean’s, soaking the carpet through to the floorboards.  
  
Despite what Sam had been through, he was still hanging on to life. His limbs twitched as he still uselessly tried to press against his bonds but blood loss had his vision wavering. A never ending river of tears flowed down his face and thinned out the rivulets of blood pooling beneath him.  
  
Sam said Dean’s name over and over against the duct tape, watching the lifeless Dean-shaped mass on the floor. His vision greyed around the edges and distorted as if he were looking through the heat waves pouring off hot concrete in the desert. Dean never even twitched, his body twisted and spattered with blood and come. The back of his head was matted with blood and his skin slowly faded from golden tan to sickly grey-white as Sam watched everything he loved begin to rot into the floor.  
  
He heard the rumble of the Impala’s engine. The garage door opening. Squealing tires. Sirens. His last breath bubbling out from between his bloody lips.


	15. Sic transit gloria mundi ~ So passes away earthly glory

  
15.

**_Sic transit gloria mundi_ **

  
_So passes away earthly glory_

  


  
  


“ _CLEAR…_ ”

  
  


“ _He’s still not breathing, start CPR. God damn it will you get a handle on his bleeding, please!? He’s gonna bleed out before I even get to thirty compressions!_ ”

  
  


“ _Fuck, it’s no good I’m losing him._ ”

  
  
The searing burn in Sam’s chest was infinitely worse than his physical wounds. It was the sensation of his soul being ripped out of his body slowly, gentle tugs pulling the tension on the connection tighter as the seconds ticked by.  
  
He could feel his own tears hot on his face, amazing that there was still fluid in his body left to leak. He tasted the copper on his tongue, honestly unable to remember a time when his tongue wasn’t slick with his own blood. He could still hear Dean’s anguished screams, his sobs, the ragged breath as his heart stopped and his eyes flicked open for the last time. The echoes of Angus’ pathetic, puppy whimpers. Sam’s own last words gritted out between his torn lips.  
  
“ _Dean… Dean, I’m so sorry._ ”  
  
That voice again, not Sam’s own, one from inside his consciousness. A voice of concern. Of memory. Dark and sharp like the beak of the crow that cawed from the oak tree outside their window.  
  
  
 _ **It’s done now, Sam. Let it go.**_  
  
  
 _ **Remember the smell of his hair.**_  
  
  
 _ **Love and trust and innocence and respect.**_  
  
  
 _ **Forever and ever.**_  
  
  
 _ **Hurts more than words can say, doesn’t it?**_  
  
  
 _ **He used to hug you so hard that your ribs hurt.**_  
  
  
 _ **You were the luckiest man alive. Weren’t you, Sam?**_  
  
  
The voice faded, the memories crumbled to dust. Everything was red then everything was black. But the pain didn’t stop. The pain was eternal.  
  


_This is the end, my only friend, the end_

_It hurts to set you free_

_But you'll never follow me_

_The end of laughter and soft lies_

_The end of nights we tried to die_

_This is the end_


	16. Transit umbra, lux permanet ~ Shadow passes, light remains

 

16.

**_Transit umbra, lux permanet_ **

 

Shadow passes, light remains

  
  
Sam slid back into consciousness standing on shaking legs under a velvet black, nearly starless sky. The storm had calmed around him and the city stood eerily quiet, still quaking and cold in the torrent’s aftermath.  
  
“Heya, Sammy,” Dean said, turning to face Sam in the blossoming light. His voice was rich and delicious like cream flavored with honey, a sound as beautiful as all the choirs of heaven to Sam’s ears. Bright, golden sunlight cut like a spotlight through the ebony sky and glinted off Dean’s sun-dappled cheeks. His eyes were greener than summer foliage, smile lines like deep, beautiful canyons fanning out at their corners. His plush, pink lips parted in an easy grin. A smile reserved just for Sam. “I missed you so much, man.”  
  
Dean stepped closer and Sam swore he could smell his clean skin, feel the warmth that radiated off of him. Sam gasped softly as Dean smoothed his hands gently down his arms, pulling Sam’s hands into his own. His fingertips ran tenderly over Sam’s shattered knuckles, the injuries there fading to memory as he brought them up to his lips. He kissed Sam’s hands reverently, lips pressing over tendon and bone. Dean’s eyes fluttered shut, his lashes gently rustled by Sam’s heaving breath.  
  
Sam’s skin erupted in a flush of feeling under his brother’s touch, like flesh warming from the bitter cold. His nerve endings, numb for so long, were suddenly alive, practically dancing beneath Dean’s comforting touch. The rush of bliss rolled over Sam’s entire body like the warm ebb of waves lapping at some white sanded beach.  
  
Sam blinked his eyes in the golden light, shaking his head in disbelief. The wet heat of fresh tears poured down his cheeks and dragged a small, ragged laugh out of his lungs. It couldn’t be real. The hard bite of asphalt against Sam’s knees felt real enough as he fell to the ground, sobbing. Dean followed him down, pulling Sam into his loving, protective embrace. He pressed his lips to the center of Sam’s forehead, the tip of his nose nuzzling into the part of Sam’s hair. His breath, gentle and warm, soothed over the damp spot left by his kiss as he slowly pulled away.  
  
“It’s time to go home, Sam. It’s done. You made it back to me. Finally.”  
  
The ground turned subtly soft beneath Sam’s knees. Silhouettes of tombstones and trees, flowers and grass, faded into focus behind Dean’s broad shoulders. Sunlight burned away the rest of the night sky as Sam looked into Dean’s eyes. His brother, his lover, his everything. It was like seeing paradise, a new beginning, the promise of eternal love that didn’t require a leap of faith to believe.  
  
“Dean, wait, I – I don’t know what… What did I do?” Tears streamed down Sam’s face and his body ached with the echo of his actions, what he had become. The weight of it fell down around him like scenes from a movie, pictures from a true crime novel, grey and faded at the edges. The blood was still so red in his mind, he could smell the gunpowder and the stink of death rushing back into his senses like a nightmare. Sam could feel the life draining out of Dante as if he were still straddling his broken body. He yanked his hands away from Dean’s, pulling out of his embrace. “Don’t touch me, Dean. I’m ruined, I’m poison, I’m – ”  
  
Dean was sunshine and light, fresh linen and lazy summers on a porch they’d never sit on again, rocking chairs and apple pie. He was pure, he was worth protecting. Sam was darkness, blood, and obsession. He’d become the very thing they’d spent most of their lives hunting. Sam had morphed into a monster. He scrubbed his shaking hands over his face. The unctuous smear of grease paint on his skin made him look down at his palms. A violent smear of black, white, and muted grey looked like storm clouds. His teardrops fell onto his open hands like droplets of rain.  
  
“Shhhh, no Sammy. No. Don’t do this. You’re forgiven. We both are. It’s done and we never have to look back again. Not ever.”  
  
Dean wrapped his arms around Sam and pulled him against his chest, stroking his hair away from his face. He pulled them down to the soft, grassy earth together, keeping Sam curled up against his impossible heartbeat, stroking his skin until the tears faded and they both looked up into the light filtering down on them through the oak leaves.  
  
“Remember when you said ‘ _mine_ ’ and I said ‘ _forever_?’ You said ‘ _only forever_?’ It’s forever now, Sammy.”  
  
  


 

**_In saecula saeculorum_ **

**Author's Note:**

> [chomaisky](http://chomaisky.livejournal.com/63078.html) \- I was so honored and blown away that you chose my fic and it was wonderful to work with you, every step of the way! Your artwork is breathtaking and your style is absolutely perfect for my story. Thank you for being so generous and patient with me, I really can't thank you enough. You are incredibly talented and I can't wait to see what you do next!
> 
> dollylux - My precious, beautiful, insanely talented, muse and cherished best friend how did we get here again with another enormous fic of mine posted for people to read? Can you believe it's almost been 2 years since we met at Dallascon? As usual I do not have the words to express my gratitude or properly articulate exactly what you mean to me. You make me a better writer and the truth is that I can only do this at all because you inspire me down to my very core. Thank you for reading this and helping me improve this piece, I know it's gorgeous even if no one ever reads it because you told me so. My Unicorn. My Magic. My Heart.
> 
> homo_pink - I have to give you a shout out, sweetheart. Not only are you one of my favorite authors but your spnspringfling fic Letters from a Half-Finished Boy is what made me write this. That story gutted me in the best possible way, it made me see, hear, taste and smell the violence of the Winchesters' love and IT MADE ME WANT TO HURT PEOPLE WITH MY WORDS. I had this on the back burner as a "maybe I'll write it, IDK, IDK" kind of thing and your story gave me an existential crisis for a week after which I sat down one day and cranked out 10K of this thing in one sitting. Thank you! You're a brilliant writer and a genuinely nice person and I adore you.


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